A Perfect Circle
by Trench Kamen
Summary: In granting a wish serving his own ends, Fuuma halts the gears of destiny. Four men pursuing their own objectives can make or break Fuuma's goal, obliviously impacting the future. But the calm can only last so long, and time is forever running out...
1. The World Turned Upside Down

This is an alternate ending of the _X_ manga from volume 14. As such, there are spoilers for all manga included and previous (this includes _Tokyo Babylon_), as well as conceptual spoilers for the end of the TV series. In that sense, the path the story will take is somewhat of a hybrid.

There is yaoi (male/male) content. There is swearing. There is gore. Warnings will be placed on appropriate chapters.

_X_ and _Tokyo Babylon_ are copyright CLAMP. All quotes, lyrics, etc. used are copyright their respective owners.

* * *

**Prologue – The Undecided Future**

_Life is real—life is earnest—  
And the grave is not its goal:  
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,  
Was not spoken of the soul._

_Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,  
Is our destin'd end or way;  
But to act, that each to-morrow  
Find us farther than to-day._

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; "A Psalm of Life"

* * *

"Do you always come here when you dream?" 

Fuuma started out of a trance and looked to his side as a smiling young woman sat down beside him—_Christ she has green eyes—_crossing her legs and leaning on the heel of her hand. He had not felt her approach; he _always_ felt people approach, especially if they were specifically approaching _him_. He had been meditating on a grassy knoll overlooking the flooded, sunlit manifestation of Tokyo's ruins, light glaring off the concrete and glass skyscrapers carpeted with lush greenery.

"Not always."

He observed the woman for a moment, feeling as though he was staring at a doll, all plastic and no mind. He always had an innate, deeply-rooted knowledge of people he met, arriving through no logical progression but all at once and without herald, as though he had always had the information in his permanent memory. He blinked. _She can't be a dreamseer. She can't be alive, for that matter; she has to be a spirit. But what is she doing all the way out here?_

"You're dead, aren't you?"

The woman nodded. "Yup, I'm dead. I'm sorry if I startled you, but I like to wander around, and I've got enough magical power to go places like this. I don't know where it is, but it's pretty." She leaned back on her hands. "Sad, but pretty. Kind of like you. What's your name, by the way?"

Another flicker, flashing and gone, and Fuuma stared.

"…Kamui."

"Aaaaah, so _you're_ the Kamui I heard about for so many years."

"You must come from a well-educated background. Few people have heard of me."

"You might say that. Oh, I'm Hokuto, by the way. Sumeragi Hokuto." Hokuto offered her hand and, when Fuuma took it, shook it heartily. "I'm so happy to meet you! I haven't talked to anybody new in _ages_. It's so _boring_ here. Everybody in the afterlife _acts_ like they're dead, which is no fun at all. They act like they're done with life. I say, I'm not done until I say I'm done _living_, you know? You don't need a pulse to do that! Oh, I'm sorry, I'm rambling. What are you doing here? What is this place?"

Fuuma did not notice until a full second had passed that his eyes were wide open, eyebrows arcing under his gelled bangs, though his mouth barely twitched. Hokuto cocked her head. A dangling, coral earring brushed her shoulder. "Huh? What's wrong?"

"…nothing." Fuuma smoothed his expression neutral and turned back to the sunlit ruins. "I just haven't been surprised by a person in ages, and it is disorienting."

"What, do you only know boring people, or what? People _never_ fail to surprise me, no matter how much I think I know about them."

"No, no. I… I have a knowledge of people's minds, so to speak; people are open and clear to me. You are not."

"Well, that must be because I'm dead."

"I assume that's it."

"But you're _Kamui_; why don't your powers extend to the spirits of the dead?"

Fuuma leaned back on his hands and scoffed quietly through his nose. "The extent of my concern, you might say, concerns those still _living_."

"What on earth do you mean by that?"

When Fuuma merely smiled to himself in response, Hokuto snorted and settled back on her hands. Though she was at the fringe of his peripheral vision, Fuuma could tell that she was thinking, studying him carefully. _You and everybody else, missie.__I'd like to hear what you have to say about what you think I'm up to._

"Looks like you could use a good shaking, anyway," she finally said. "You're too self-possessed." Hokuto poked Fuuma on the nose; Fuuma blinked and turned to stare at her, but did not flinch. It was evident to no one but himself that he had been caught off-guard. "You didn't answer my questions, by the way."

"…I didn't." Fuuma's eyes flickered back to the sunlit ruins a split-second before he turned his head after them. "This is a hypothetical vision of the future earth, a symbolic representation of my ideal."

"You mean, like, you're a dreamseer?"

"No; I do not have the power to see into the future."

"Aaaah. It's pretty, but something's sad about it." Hokuto put her forefinger on her lip for a moment, thinking. "Hmmm… ah! I guess it's because there are no people."

"In this world, the earth has been purged of humanity."

Hokuto turned to stare at the ruins, a faint, perplexed look crossing her face. "This is what you think the aftermath of the great war will be? Something this pretty? I don't know…"

"We refuse to use biological or nuclear means, so the ecosystem will not be harmed." Fuuma ran his fingers through the springy grass beside his leg. "Spilt blood and flesh will replenish the soil humans have farmed to dust, and the earth will revitalize herself."

"Funny, it doesn't seem that's really what you're so concerned about." Hokuto leaned toward Fuuma and stared into his eyes when he looked up, hands on her bare knees. _God, her eyes are green._ "When I found you, you were looking at something that's not here. You weren't thinking about this new earth at all, were you?"

"…in a sense."

"What do you mean?"

They were nose-to-nose.

_She can see the 'real' me, can't she; she doesn't see a reflection of her heart's wish. So, in life, what would she have seen in me? She called me 'sad'… which means—_

"…the revolution I long for lies in humanity itself."

"Huhhh…" Hokuto cocked her head, not backing off a centimeter. "Well, goodness knows humans could use some help with things, but there's some stuff you just can't change about them, or they're no longer human."

"I can't elaborate further."

"You mean, you go around granting everybody else's wishes, but you can't do anything about your own?"

Barely a flicker of shock marred Fuuma's controlled stare. His mouth twitched involuntarily, slightly. Hokuto stared back, trying to maintain the tension for as long as she could, but broke just after the tension had reached its first peak and subsided. She smiled and tapped the side of her nose.

"It's very obvious," she said. She tapped Fuuma's cheek; Fuuma blinked. "You know, I used to know a dreamseer who was very sad because he could only watch the future, but he couldn't do anything about it; is that kind of what you're feeling with your wish? Like, it's up to somebody else, but you can't do anything about it?"

Something inside Fuuma gave way; his standoffish, defensive inclination evaporated in lieu of a sick, benevolent feeling. He smiled to himself and leaned on the heel of his hand, cocking his head to stare at Hokuto.

"…I've done all I can to make him realize it, even if it means ripping his life apart."

"Ohhhh… who is this mysterious man?" Hokuto pulled away and leaned back on her hands excitedly. "Is he a brother or a best friend? Or… a lover?"

Fuuma laughed quietly. "You know, Hokuto-san, most men would not respond well to being accused of homosexuality."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Hokuto clapped her hands together and bowed behind them, using them as both a shield and piece offering. "You see, I don't even think about it anymore. I grew up with a gay brother and I spent the last year of my life trying to hook him up with another guy, so it's like second nature to me. I didn't mean to offend you!"

"I took no offence whatsoever."

"Good! Wow, I keep forgetting that most men actually _only_ prefer to be with women!" She laughed. "But what's the answer there, I mean, who is this guy that's holding the key to your wish?"

"…he _is_ me."

"Oh, so it's like _that_."

"I'm serious. He is my Gemini, the other Kamui. The reciprocal."

"…there's another Kamui?"

"Yes."

"Huh…" Hokuto held her chin between her thumb and pointer finger, furrowing her eyebrows and looking to the side in thought. "That's odd; I had heard all my life there was only _one_ Kamui."

"As I said, he is me."

"He is… AH!" She looked up. "I get it!" She clapped again and nodded. "You're his reflection, his shadow! You must be everything he's not so the world would balance itself out!"

"…you truly were raised a Sumeragi to think so quickly in that way."

"When you're raised onmyouji-style, everything is in blacks-and-whites, opposites-and-patterns, reflections and perfect circles of karma. Maybe that's why I didn't do so well with training to be an onmyouji; I think it's all bullshit."

She laughed and flopped onto her back, folding her hands behind her head. Fuuma felt a response stir within his chest, something indescribable but second cousin to melancholy and longing. For a moment, he desperately wanted this laughing, optimistic girl, pale olive skin and slender limbs, ebon hair and green eyes, orange Mandarin top against the grass and all the while laughing, laughing, cerebral butterflies range in and out of the corners of his eyes—

"…I guess I'm glad I didn't, you know, get that power, otherwise people'd have been on my back all the time," said Hokuto. "I wouldn't want to be trained to make patterns where there aren't patterns; you start twisting reality around to fit some perfect little model you have for it."

A butterfly flitted blindingly past, rainbow-film wings flashing the sun, and Fuuma saw—

"I see."

"It's like, I never liked physics because, well, I didn't like math, but also all the stuff the teacher taught us about only happened in a perfect world, but in the real world, things screw with the numbers, and random variables get in the way of the perfect reactions. You see…" Hokuto sat up again. _You can't sit still for twenty seconds, can you, girl? _"I don't believe there is such a thing as a perfect circle. My brother's been trained to think there's a perfect circle behind all the chaos he sees in his life."

"Does your brother really think that way deep down?"

"You know…" Hokuto thought for a moment. "…you'd _think_… for all you see of him sulking around all the time, that he's given up on the idea of good things happening to good people, but I don't think even Sei-chan could shake his circles, deep down."

"You don't think he's lost faith?"

"I never said he hadn't lost _faith_, because he sure as hell _has_, but… I don't know." Hokuto thought for a while, hands interlinked and stretched straight out into the air, and sighed, dropping her hands over her head. "You know, when it comes right down to it, even _I_ don't know what my brother thinks about 'fate' anymore. You know, if individuals can do anything to control their own destinies. At least when he believed in karma, he was going a step in the right direction. Karma's something _you_ do, something _you_ influence."

Fuuma snorted quietly to himself. Hokuto snapped her head in his direction.

"…you know my brother," she said quietly. "You know something I don't."

"I am familiar with him. Sumeragi Subaru-san, yes?" Hokuto nodded eagerly. "Then I know quite a bit of your history and how you died. You're a big part of his wish."

A freeze. Fuuma looked at Hokuto. The girl's expression had frozen in numb anger, and she was gripping the grass, white-knuckled.

"…his wish is stupid," said Hokuto.

"You know his wish?"

"I guessed his wish, because I know him, and I know how much he values himself. He wants Sei-chan to kill him, doesn't he?"

"Yes."

"How stupid can you get?" Hokuto hissed.

Fuuma watched Hokuto stew for a moment, trying his hardest to _know_ her intentions and thoughts, but to no avail. Various emotions and thoughts flickered in conflict across her eyes, but her face remained immobile in deadly-calm fury. The wheels were obviously turning upstairs, though along familiar, often-traveled paths; this was no new issue over which Hokuto agonized. She finally released the grass and hugged her knees, resting her forehead on her folded arms.

"I made a huge mistake," she said quietly.

"You had no way of knowing, Hokuto-san."

"But I did, I did! I _knew_ he'd do this; he's obsessive… I made the biggest mistake of all when I—I don't know." Fuuma expected Hokuto to cry, but she only stared at the grass for a long time, collecting her thoughts. "…I was dumb when I was sixteen. I honestly thought that what I did was the right thing, but it wasn't. I had all these idealistic ideas that really were just… me running away from anybody giving me any kind of general advice, I guess, anything that said 'all people are like this', or 'this is the way you should live to ensure happiness; these are the rules'. You see, I really do believe that there's no such thing as 'everybody', and that everyone has their own path, so I thought… I guess I thought I was helping Subaru down his path. I guess I thought I was going to help Subaru find his true happiness. You see… my brother is very much an altruist, or as close as you can come and be human."

"Yes, he is."

"And Sei-chan was the first person he felt passionate enough about not to let go, and I was afraid if he lost him, he'd have even less self-worth than he had before, so… I cast this spell…" Hokuto played with the grass. "You know. When it comes right down to it, Subaru's not happy. I've been watching him… Beyond all of that stuff I believed about there being no wrong love and each person having his own definition of 'love', where none of them are wrong… he's not happy."

"…no, he's not."

Hokuto was silent for a long time. Finally, she sighed and said, "I've learned a lot in the years since I died. And I think… I'm afraid I've made a mistake. I used to have all the faith in the _world_ that this would work out, but— Hey, you can love somebody passionately enough to light the sky, and still know they're not going to make you happy, right?"

"Yes."

Hokuto curled up more tightly and buried her nose between her knees. Fuuma rested back on his hands, watching her.

"You know…" he said quietly, "I wasn't lying when I said I didn't always dream about this place. I dream a lot about humans… and, ah… the way they destroy themselves because they believe they're bound to a fate. The way they waste their lives and just wish to die."

"It's _stupid_! If there's such a thing as fate, why bother getting out of bed in the morning?" She stared at her up-curved abdomen. "Destiny is every moment a choice—a chain from one choice to the next to the next—and it's a blank ticket to the future. You can _always_ change paths. You can _always_ go off the path you're making, no matter how far along it you are. Why do people have to be so fucking _blind_?"

"…how long have you been waiting to say _that_ one?"

Hokuto stuck her tongue out at Fuuma over her legs. Fuuma smiled at her before looking off into the distance again.

"You realize… I have never spoken with the deceased, but I know that their spirits remain set as they were at the moment of their death. But you've matured. You've grown. You've _learned_. Why?"

"Oh, because the rest of them are so dumb!" Hokuto looked up over her knees. "They _think_ they're dead, so they refuse to change and still learn! Being dead's no reason not to think young!"

"You realize that, as a ghost, you possess more lust for life than the vast majority of humanity I have encountered?" Fuuma paused for a moment. "If only you were my Gemini… you're the kind of person who would bring my revolution." Another pause. "May I ask you a question?"

"Yes."

"Do you think the future has yet to be decided?"

"Always." She gave him a look. "You're not going to give me the usual dreamseer 'Destiny is foreordained' bullshit, are you?"

"No."

Fuuma turned from Hokuto and stared over the flood for a long time, thinking. Hokuto remained still, nose buried in the fold of her forearms.

"May I ask you a question?" said Fuuma.

"Yes?" Hokuto mumbled into her legs.

"My only power in this revolution is granting wishes, and I want to know what yours is."

"My 'wish'?"

"Yes. Because something tells me any deepest wish in _your_ heart, Sumeragi Hokuto-san, will lead me further toward my revolution." Fuuma took a quiet breath, aware that he probably looked quite cold and distant; the muscle-set of his face reminded him of Kamui's corresponding horrified, determined reaction. "Further toward my own wish."

"And since granting wishes is your only power, you need my help?"

A sad, sardonic smile flickered around Fuuma's mouth. "I would much appreciate it."

"…the thing is…" Hokuto paused for a moment. "…the last time I made my deepest wish come true… I don't know if I did the right thing."

Her voice had caught; Fuuma stared at her. She remained perfectly still and rigid, hugging her knees tightly.

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm not crying. I've already cried every tear in my body. I'm surprised I didn't become a mermaid in the Sea of Tears, with all the other women who have committed sins of selfishness."

"I don't think your situation is the kind of thing that gets you chucked into the Sea of Tears."

"Really? How do you know?"

"My mother ended up in there for her sin."

"That's terrible! I'm so sorry!"

"If you tell me your wish, I'll forgive you."

Hokuto laughed a little and shook her head. "I'm scared of making decisions to influence the lives of the living, any more than I already have. I really think that only they have the right to decide the course of their lives, for better or worse; nobody should interfere. That is the most basic human right."

"How would your wish interfere?"

"Nice try."

"If I tell you mine, will you tell me yours?"

"Trust me, I'm not being silent because I'm shy; you probably already guessed I'm not shy enough."

"Nonsense. You're fine." Fuuma thought for a moment. "I think you want to show to your brother the same thing I want to show to the world."

"Really? What is that?"

"That you always have a choice. That your ticket to the future is always blank."

Hokuto was silent for a long time.

"And how do you show this?" she said into her legs.

"If you make things ridiculous enough in one direction, people start to see the benefits of the opposite direction. It's… gotten out of hand. It's extreme. It's wrong. But it's high time it was done. And humanity will be better for it when they _wake up_."

Another long silence.

"It's a… it's a horrible wish," she finally said. "It's a horrible, horrible wish, and… I don't know." Hokuto picked at the grass. "…I don't know what my heart of hearts is telling me about what's right. I honestly don't. I mean, if you take away the one thing that gives somebody all the joy in his life, but has also caused all the pain, you're taking away his entire world. And it's not my place to do it. But, at the same time, I know my brother, and... well, I know he'll never take the initiative to do this on his own unless he's forced. But I want him to have that chance… just for a little while. To see what will happen."

"…you want me to knock off the Sakurazukamori?"

Hokuto shook her head and sighed. "…I want _him_ to have a chance to be happy, too. Everybody has the right to love. I don't care if he's a serial killer. Even after what he did to my brother, I still love Sei-chan. It's awful and selfish, but I _do_. So much. I desperately want to fix him, wake him up, make him a whole human being again, and have him be with Subaru. I'm pissed at him and if I see him again I'll beat him absolutely shitless, I swear to God, the blind _bastard_, but I still love him. And, besides, if you killed Sei-chan, Subaru would just get worse… he's got to heal right. Straight. I mean, not like—" Hokuto laughed. "—that, but, it's got to happen subtly. If there's somebody else out there for Subaru… who can make him _happy_, and if they can love each other just as much, then I want him to have that chance. And if, in the end, it doesn't work out and he ends up with Sei-chan, then I guess that's just the way it is."

"…you want me to separate them."

"No. I mean… yes. Yes." Hokuto swallowed and nodded firmly. "Yes."

"…you do realize that if either of their deepest wishes change so that they oppose yours, I will comply with them as well."

"…if their wishes are strong enough to counteract mine, I guess they're meant to be together. But… huh, no, that makes no sense, because it's not like that would make things better, unless—" Hokuto thought for a moment. Fuuma blinked. _I'm not following you here, miss. No wonder humans get so frustrated when they try to communicate. Words are so clumsy and distorting. _"…maybe you'll do what needs to be done for Sei-chan. Maybe you'll make him realize…"

"And if Subaru ends up with somebody else, what of Seishirou then?"

"I don't know. You know…" Hokuto looked up at Fuuma. "You, the _real_ you I'm seeing right now, seems like the kind of person he'd be attracted to." Fuuma scoffed loudly. Hokuto whacked him on the arm. "I'm _serious!_ I think deep down, despite all the terrible things you've done, your heart is in the right place. I think you're as white as snow deep down. Maybe you'd be good for him."

"_I think you're as white as snow deep down."_

"Kamui-san? Are you all right?"

_Super. I think I just had a heart attack._

"And if Subaru gets his heart broken again?"

"At least he was living again." Hokuto thought for a moment. "And, then, at least, maybe he'll see that he can love again. Maybe it will help him move on."

"And it may just make him more cynical."

Hokuto shrugged. "I think any chance for my brother to be happy is worth it. He can't get much worse than he is right now, anyway."

_Don't speak so soon._

"Besides," said Hokuto, "he may change for the better if he's with people who give him a new sense of self-worth. I hope that happens. He… he's got so much to offer, so many incredible qualities that he's blind to. Anybody would be crazy to pass him up."

_He's a cripplingly-depressed chain-smoking self-pitying martyr; who wouldn't pass him up?_

"Do you think he is as 'white as snow' deep down, Hokuto-san?"

Hokuto shook her head. "No. Pure as he is, Subaru is still a human. He knows it and he hates himself for it. He has all the compassion in the world for everybody else's faults but his own. You, though—" Hokuto poked the back of Fuuma's hand for emphasis. "—you're like a god. The only thing I mourn for you is that I think you've lost your selfish humanity. Even Kamui-san has his own life to live."

Fuuma watched Hokuto for a long time.

_And you're wrong about me there, young lady. My wish goes against everything objectively 'good' for this earth I am supposed to protect. I killed my sister to help my wish. I've killed and maimed those close to Kamui. But what was I expecting; you to be a prophet?_

"…and I think our wishes will move toward the same goal quite nicely, in the end," he said quietly.

"…you're going to grant it?" Hokuto whispered.

"It is forbidden for me to make a pact with the dead, as the conflict at hand right now is reserved to the living, but as far as I am concerned, you, miss, are not dead in any of the ways that matter." _Ask the dreamseers and Kanoe, though, and I think they'd have a stroke._ "Your boyfriend, Kakyou, met a woman who also believes that the fate of the world has yet to be decided."

"Well, she sounds like a sensible woman."

"She was." Fuuma smiled sadly to himself, staring into the distance. "And more and more I start to see just how sensible she actually was."

"Well, that's because men mature so slowly." Hokuto wagged her finger. "It would do you good just to trust women until you're about thirty. And even then, defer to them on all matters of importance."

Fuuma laughed quietly. "I just have to wonder if our fates will be similar, if I interfere too much where I have no right. She died because she touched the fate of the world. When it comes right down to it, I'm as powerless as the dreamseers."

"What do you mean?"

"I can only catalyze. The people around Kamui, though they have been designated 'warriors', exist only to sway him. It will be Kamui who decides the fate of the world."

Fuuma stood and Hokuto shadowed his movement, looking up at him as he took her hand and ghosted his lips across its back. He saw Hokuto cover her mouth out of the corner of his eye and looked up, smiling, as Hokuto stared back at him with her fingertips on her lips. A latent flicker of motion as she brushed her lip with her forefinger, bending it at the lowest joint, before she lowered her hand to stroke his spiky, gelled hair.

"If only the world was full of people like you," said Fuuma. "I would have no reason to exist."

* * *

**Chapter 1 – The World Turned Upside-Down**

Monou Fuuma scrubbed his face and flushed it with cold water from the running sink, turning the squeaking faucet off and staring down into the draining water. Water dripped off his nose and bangs, falling into the cloudy, soapy basin, breaking the translucent oil-film on the surface. He looked up into the mirror and gazed at his bleary-eyed reflection: a young man with the Mandarin collar of his leather coat open to reveal the dark bruises on his neck. What he had could not be called a 'headache' so much as a brain over-clocked and numb to the point that it slogged and felt physically heavy. His eyes refused to focus properly, blurring objects he stared at for too long. He would blink and forget what he was staring at and what he had been thinking about a second ago.

He vaguely knew he was in the basement of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, having been able to navigate himself through the concrete-and-glass, wrecked labyrinth of Nishi-Shinjuku at dusk to find one of the few buildings still standing, and that the ill-lit corridors and chambers contained therein were the lair for himself and his comrades. But, only a fraction of his brain focused on the people he passed. He wandered to the restroom adjacent to his chambers.

There was cold water in the restroom. Running water.

That was all he could focus on. It did not wake him from his stupor, but it cleared his thoughts. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, willing his thoughts to clear from the top of his brain to the base, slogging down and clearing the coils thickly, freeing the circuits for more information, more thought. Every time he succeeded he would open his eyes and his brain would fire from base to crown again, re-slogging itself.

Fuuma opened the mirror-cabinet and searched the shelves for painkillers, stopping to stare blankly and forget what he was looking for, grabbed a bottle of anti-acids, stared at it, put it back, closed his eyes and willed his loaded mind to clear, and finally grabbed a bottle of generic painkillers. He took six with a swallow of water cupped in his hands.

—_That's not so good for you. You should eat something. —_

Fuuma closed the mirror-cabinet and stared at his reflection blankly, sliding the tips of his long fingers down the metal frame and off the diagonal crease where pieces met at the corner. He was a lean-faced young man, seventeen years old and only half-Japanese, lanky, uncommonly tall and broad in the shoulders and chest, and with the physical strength to match. Though youth was always evident, at the moment he looked profoundly lost, confused and longing for somebody older to walk into the room and ask him what was wrong so he could sit against the wall and talk for hours. None of the Dragons of Earth had ever seen doubt cross Kamui's features, or anything so close as confusion at a sudden physical change around him—this doubt was obviously deeply-rooted and primordial, invading sectors tantamount to Kamui's autonomous persona. This was no Kamui—this was a lost man, and Fuuma knew somehow that was inherently wrong. Though Fuuma's mind's eye could not see the idea so much as instinctively _sense _it, know its _presence_, as one sees clearly a scene just beyond one's closed eyelids, he knew that it was just one missing piece in a world coming unraveled. The powers that be were looking up from their sleep, bowed heads in white cowls sniffing the air, and waiting in the heavy, static air.

Waiting for a storm.

"…what am I doing here?"

—_This is the Dragons of Earth's base. You are their leader, Kamui.—_

"…my name is Fuuma."

—_It's easier for people to remember your true colors if they call you 'Kamui'. If you don't insist, arbitrary as it is, they will forget.—_

Fuuma stared at his reflection, half-thinking of the lady with dark hair and the rack who had given him a quizzical look upon entering, he knew, because he had forgotten to do something that involved causing an earthquake. She had pursued him and grabbed his arm when he did not respond; he had shaken her off, feeling her weight release and stumbling—overbalancing—then dragged himself into the restroom. He had forgotten to remove his heavy leather boots at the entrance; they kept his ankles stiff when he stumbled, supporting him at times, tripping him at others.

—_I'll never forget who I am.—_

Fuuma walked blindly through the short corridor to the adjoining bathroom, leaning heavily on the wood-paneled wall until the wall ended and he stumbled into the open foyer. He scrabbled with the taps and started the water running, then sat down heavily on the edge of the bathtub, lifting one ankle onto the opposite knee. He fumbled with his shoelaces with stiff fingers and stopped halfway through unlacing one boot to stare, eyes un-focusing again.

His brain was full of lead from crown to pan, and it would not stop beating itself.

Fuuma finally managed to remove his boots and threw them against the wall, fumbling to pull off his socks and throwing them and his leather overcoat over his shoes. He numbly noticed that the water had long since filled the deep basin to its brim; the water was soaking over the tub's edge and lapping at the seat of his jeans as steam curled around him. He twisted at the waist to turn the taps off and stopped, mesmerized by the reflection in the water.

—_I'll never forget who I am.—_

Fuuma stared at the reflection, his hand poised over the tap, water still gushing into the pool. The reflection, though distant and fully self-possessed, was faintly melancholy beneath the straight face, a refraction of the identity Fuuma was trying to retain. Fuuma turned further around, pulling his closest knee up onto the tub rim to rest that ankle on his opposite knee. He could step onto the water—step over the reflection, and around each step water would spread in ripples, flat as the surface of glass through the steam—

Fuuma crashed through the water and gasped, rushing to the surface to take deep, desperate breaths.

_Well, what the hell were you expecting to happen, you idiot? URGH—I hate wet jeans I hate wet jeans—_

Fuuma waded to the edge of the tub and leaned toward the floor, gasping in the cooler, dryer air. After a moment he sighed and slid back into the hot water, wading backwards to the opposite end of the tub and resting against the wall. He slicked his hair back with his fingers and submerged himself to his chin, closing his eyes.

_God, I'm exhausted._

—_God's not going to pay much attention to you, Kamui.—_

_Well, he paid enough attention to me when he chose me for this._ He did not remember why or what God had chosen him for, though. Just that it was somehow God's fault he was in a bathtub under the Metropolitan Building—in his jeans, no less, and they were _clinging_ everywhere—talking to himself and suffering amnesia.

—_Now you just sound like a spoiled child.—_

Fuuma slid beneath the water.

_I don't even remember what I'm doing here. _

—_Don't worry. I promise everything is going to work out as planned. No matter what happens.—_

In the peripherally of his mind's eye, he saw his mirror image sitting in the water, hovering above him and just out of the line of detailed vision. The mirror image sat with his back perfectly straight, detached, the glare from the room's headlights darkening him even in Fuuma's mental world. It was as though Fuuma could see through his eyelids, but as soon as he opened his eyes, he knew the apparition would disappear.

—_Never forget that, Fuuma. You are always in control, no matter what. The future is still decided. No matter how things seem to change, it will always be the same in the end. And nothing will stop it.—_

…_am I waking up?_

—_No. I am going to sleep.—_

_Why?_

—_The future is taking an alternate path to its destination. Somebody wished this.—_

_Who? Wait; what's going on? Wait—_

—_Never forget, Fuuma. They'll try to turn you against us; they'll try to poison your mind against us. They'll make you ashamed of us. They don't know. Don't listen to them. They will believe what they want to believe about us, twist our true face to be nothing but a mask, because it is an easier 'reality' for them to handle. They will say that we are an illusion, that we have no substance.—_

_I don't understand a word you're saying._

—_The Sumeragi is wrong about us.— _

_Wait, where are you going?_

—_The world is about to be turned upside down.—_

The reflection was distant and sad, melancholy and world-weary, a man with all the pathos in the world.

And, for the first and last time until the apocalypse, Fuuma saw his own face reflected back at him.

* * *

Fuuma gasped and awoke in a panic, breaking the surface and throwing himself over the edge of the tub to vomit water out of his lungs. He gripped the slick sides of the tub and gasped brokenly, retching, fighting for air and coughing the last vestiges of water out. He collapsed cheek-first onto the cold tub-edge, shaking and turning his face toward the cooler air away from the tub.

_I hope you're appeased for now, Fuuma. You can't keep this nonsense up if you want to survive when I'm gone. You will drive yourself mad._

Fuuma knew that the man in sunglasses opposite the direction his head was turned had been sitting on the edge of the tub for a while. The latter was smoking, waiting patiently for Fuuma to stop shaking and catch his breath.

"…you _could_ hang your coat in the linen closet if you're hot," said Fuuma, "since this _is_ a _sauna_."

Seishirou took a drag of his cigarette and smiled to himself. "It's not like you care, so why are you pretending?"

Fuuma lifted himself out of the tub, peeling off his soaked shirt and wringing it out as he sat down to the other man's left. It was a courtesy; Seishirou thought it rude when people sat to his right so he had to turn his head to see them, though given his heightened senses he had no need insofar as self-defense was concerned. Seishirou dug through his trenchcoat pocket and nudged a cigarette out of a crushed Mild Sevens box with his thumb, offering it; Fuuma took it and accepted Seishirou's offer for a light, shielding the lighter flame with his hand. He inhaled deeply and allowed the nicotine to loosen his lungs.

"On that note, would it kill you not to wear your sunglasses in a basement?"

"Maybe not. People seem to survive the oddest things down here." From Fuuma's place to Seishirou's side he could see the older man look sidelong at him from behind his glasses. "You were underwater for almost five minutes. That's a guarantee of legal death in my profession."

"Legal death profits you in your profession."

"Which one?"

"Good point."

Seishirou snorted quietly as Fuuma looked for a place to lay his shirt out to dry, realizing that he had flooded the bathroom floor about a meter radial from the tub's base, and that Seishirou had probably magically dried himself a spot to sit. Fuuma flicked the shirt open and laid it across his thigh.

"Did you find the place all right?"

"Believe it or not, I've worked in Shinjuku long enough to know how to find the Metropolitan Buildings." Seishirou smiled to himself. "The lady, what's-her-name, Kanoe-san, almost had a cerebral hemorrhage when she saw me; she certainly does think she's entitled to boss you around just because you're nominally on her side, doesn't she?"

"Did she give you trouble?"

"Nah, not really. She just wants me to show up to more club meetings and pay my dues." Seishirou leaned back on his hands, cigarette between two fingers, and smiled at Fuuma. "Why are you being so formal, anyway? It's not as if we're not on very familiar terms."

"Why are you pretending you don't loathe my very existence, since I have taken away access from the one thing in the world that is special to you?"

Seishirou's expression remained perfectly calm, though Fuuma sensed a tremor.

"…I thought we had discussed this."

"We did, and I won—" Fuuma held up his hand as Seishirou opened his mouth to say something. "—which is why I won't argue with you again."

"…believe what you want."

Seishirou took a long drag of his cigarette, exhaled, and removed his sunglasses with his cigarette pinched at the juncture of his fingers. He folded the glasses and placed them in his coat pocket, looking at Fuuma. Fuuma stared back, allowing his cigarette to dangle from his fingers, the heel of his palm pressed onto the tub's rim. Point-blank Seishirou's gaze almost made him look as though he had been knocked in the head too hard as a kid; his blank right eye made it look as though he focused off-center to the left. The steadiness and awareness in his living eye kept most people—those not jerking slightly in morbid shock—just short of cracking up, as though the laugh broke against the throat and the muscles seized at the brink of release.

Fuuma, not being Most People, snorted quietly anyway.

"I assume it's working, though," said Seishirou.

"Given the half-baked nature of your brilliant plan, I'd say it's working shockingly well."

"You're not going to start with me again about why I'm doing this, are you?"

"Are you worried that I will?"

"No. I'm just wondering if it's physically possible for you to sit in the same room as somebody without having to prove just how _clever_ and _insightful_ you are."

"And I assume you're so much more _secure_ and… further along your 'transcendental journey of awareness' than I am."

"I'd say so."

"Besides, supposedly it's much easier to sit alone with somebody in complete silence after you've slept with him. Maybe I'll shut up."

"Hmm."

They _did_ sit in silence for a while. Fuuma finished his cigarette and snubbed it out on the wet tub-edge.

"And to what do I owe the honor of your visit?"

Seishirou smiled. "Can't friends visit one another without a reason? Call it an act of whimsy. I was in the area and I was wondering how you were doing. And maybe I wanted to see if I got any employee benefits I wasn't aware of."

"I think your attendance record cancels your 'benefits'."

Seishirou shrugged. "I have other obligations." He leaned forward slightly and snubbed his own cigarette out on the side of the tub, staring levelly at Fuuma. "…how are you feeling?"

"You don't care how I feel. You want to know about my mental state."

"Emotions tie into that."

"You know what I mean. And, as of this moment, my mental state is perfectly clear. Earlier, it was not."

Seishirou arched his eyebrows. "Oh?"

"I hate to say that your plan just might be working."

"Really?"

"Don't play dumb. You're not dumb…Seishirou-san." Neither man's gaze wavered, though Fuuma sensed a twinge lance through Seishirou's chest that he also knew Seishirou could not identify. "Enough stimuli come into conjunction at one brilliant moment—four coinciding wishes, latent and half-realized, especially in your case—along with my own innermost desires, and it may just be enough to halt even the gears of destiny. Even that force that cannot be denied. If human will wielded by humans of power in this war coincides to this degree, toward a common goal, then perhaps—just maybe—it throws a wrench in the gears. And if the gears can be torn asunder before they break the wrench—the wrench may just contribute to their destruction."

Seishirou arched his eyebrows sardonically. "…may it, now."

"The wrench buys time."

Seishirou thought for a moment. "You know, for all you talk about fate, do you really believe in it, Monou-kun?"

Fuuma was silent, though he arched his eyebrows slightly.

"It's a shame, really, that you have not made that boy realize your dream, for all you've done to him to make him realize it."

"And you think you know what that is."

"It's obvious, really."

"Really." Fuuma tapped his fingers on the side of the tub. "For all you think you know about humans, you have no idea how to navigate your own intentions and desires, do you? And maybe you're not always right about others anyway."

Seishirou snorted. "And so you want to try to turn this on me and use some weak pseudo-insight like that. Very creative one, too."

"In the first place, next time you want to pull something like this, don't hide behind an excuse like 'It is in the code that nobody can touch a Sakurazukamori's prey' when it's evident to everybody and their dogs that you don't give a fuck about decorum. You're prideful, but you would never go this far for any other person. Only with this boy. Seishirou-san, have you stopped and _realized_ that you are trying to stop fate in its tracks for the sake of this one person?"

Seishirou was quiet. Fuuma shrugged.

"You won't hear my words until you _realize_ them, and then, you'll realize them because you'll _know_."

* * *

_You don't know what you've got until it's gone._

_

* * *

_

When Seishirou stepped out of the Metropolitan Buildings the wreckage of the towering high-rises was ethereal in the pale-purple and pink stages of dusk. What was left standing of Nishi-Shinjuku's white-and-gray concrete buildings were illuminating with red lights along their edges and geometric designs at the peaks, and a scattering of green-yellow in windows and in roof up-lights. Somehow the Shinjuku Park Tower had survived the earthquake; it stood alone, towering above ruins and wreckage roped by blinking caution signs and emergency vehicles still working on sifting through the wreckage for bodies. Most drivers had turned on their headlights, and traffic lights glared with a profoundness most heightened at twilight and dawn. Traffic was hell in Tokyo lately, especially in areas lying in ruin; despite Nishi-Shinjuku being declared a disaster area, the government's workings could not stop, and so people still commuted every morning to the wreck, past the mass-gravesites of friends and colleagues.

It was from the building Seishirou was exiting that press releases were being given pleading people to start to move out of the city as quickly as possible, to avoid further death and to stagger an impending, sudden flood of millions of homeless into the surrounding areas. Lately Narita Airport had been an absolute zoo, with outgoing flights packed with Tokyo's citizens desperate to get to neighboring cities or even nations before the choicest international doors slammed on Japanese refugees, and incoming flights less-packed with local aid and foreign aid volunteers from various first-world countries—the latter with their accompanying news-media eager to put on a show for primetime of the "Apocalypse in Tokyo". From the tops of skyscrapers Seishirou could see lines of red taillights jamming the highways out of the city, bumper-to-bumper traffic to no end in sight across the mammoth metropolis, and sparse pairs of pale-gold headlights rushing into the city at top freeway speed.

It was difficult to appreciate how absolutely mammoth and sprawling Tokyo was until one had an aerial view of the city. Seishirou conjured a memory of the last time he had stood atop the Metropolitan Buildings at sunset. It was a long time ago, before 'Kamui' had started destroying the wards, before there were swaths of broken wreckage like graveyards of fallen, white stone, blinking with emergency lights and intermittently with a helicopter's spotlight illuminating yawning chasms of shadow and twisted steel supports. As Tokyo was a staggering spread of packed buildings to the edge of the horizon, so were the swaths of wreckage staggering. One could see the vestiges of hundreds of thousands of ruined lives from one high vantage point, apartments collapsed in on themselves with hard-drives and photographs and rice-cookers and all the luxuries of modern life that have become addiction, necessity, the storage for our most basic needs and precious memories. One could walk into countless apartments and find a different story in the wreckage of each, scraps of photographs of seemingly random and stock people in school uniforms, in portraits, standing in front of monuments, at karaoke bars and on buses—mundane, and to others boring, but to those that left them, the entire world. One could find clothing and plastic hairclips and broken candle-glasses and receipts and the plethora of broken electronics, things people would wince to think of as being smashed by a beam or concrete. And, often, one could find corpses who had been robbed of life while doing their homework, sitting down to eat or in the shower, talking on the internet or chatting on the phone or watching television.

The deaths were still sudden and macabre even in light of the clear and present danger, most occurring without dramatics or the victims' families and friends at hand for a good-bye. The last conversations one had with a victim were often along the lies of "Yeah, I'll talk to you later; maybe I'll have some time later to go out, but not tonight; I'm going to go home and crash—yeah, sorry, later—"

And, then, they were gone. Drawn government officials would inform yet another family, thinking themselves completely cold to the families' heartbreaking reactions, but merely unaware of the fact that they felt as though they had been stabbed in the gut again and again until the stress finally accumulated and broke, all at once, over the un-aware officials. Word-of-mouth would get to peers, co-workers, and buddies—best friends and lovers first—and a numbness would settle. People would eventually grow colder to losing auxiliary friends and peers, only allowing themselves quiet mourning that evening at home, because life had to go on, and the victims' families and close friends would mourn more than enough for them—the good guy from work, the one you sometimes drink with and hope works out his love life and finds himself that right girl; the girl in the office next-door who likes plastic pink hair-clips and can hold her alcohol better than men twice her size and tells the best stories when you guys are bored together. They're all gone, picked off, with no clear pattern to distinguish who will be next amid the plethora of personalities. And there will always be a toast to them, a drink for them when it is time to go back to the bar, and fond and quick comments of what she would have said, he would have done, and a quick laugh. _Kampai._ Here's to them.

And, always, a quiet fear that it would be themselves next, or a loved one; the more random the pattern, the more the seemingly idiosyncratic-to-the-point-of-immortality died, the greater the fear.

And, when the victim _was_ somebody close to one's heart—

It was one of the jerkier things Fuuma had done to Seishirou since they had started sleeping together. While they had stopped by the Ebisu ruins so Fuuma could talk about some girl with a stuffed frog and Seishirou could pretend to listen, walking with such confidence that government officials assumed they were cops, and visa versa, they had walked past a rescue effort to tug a corpse from beneath the concave roof of a concrete pavilion. Seishirou had seen a white-clad, broad-shouldered figure at first— head hanging like a marionette's where the fallen wreck pinned it at the waist—ignored it, and jerked back, staring and blinking, assuring himself that the corpse was not Subaru-kun—_not Subaru-kun—_but its cropped black hair and form, slender neck cocooned in a turtleneck and broad shoulders tapering to a slim waist, were unmistakable. The panic only lasted a split-second, not even long enough to register in his mind, before he stared back at Fuuma and forgot what he had just felt. Fuuma was smiling to himself, quiet and Sphinx-like. Nearby an American cable news station was giving its Fair and Balanced News Report on the event, highlighting the American workers and their contributions to the rescue effort.

When Seishirou glanced back at the wreck, the body was that of a middle-aged man in a mauve-brown suit, and neither he nor Fuuma mentioned the illusion. But for a good few hours afterward Fuuma's 'I-have-you-figured-out' attitude spiked, just beneath the surface, and it would have been insufferable if Fuuma had actually been right at all. Fuuma was convinced that deep down, Seishirou loved Subaru; Fuuma was a naïve child when it came right down to it, 'Kamui' or not. Seishirou was disappointed; he had been expecting sharper insight from the man rumored to have the ability to see into each person's innermost heart.

Really. Fuuma was wrong and had no idea what he was talking about.

This was what Seishirou had kept telling himself from the start, in his conscious mind. But the slightest doubt—no more than a flicker, a faint beat—that had caught him when _Fuuma_ had delivered his declaration had taken root, and was lapping at the edges of Seishirou's consciousness, so lightly that he was not aware of its presence. He thought it was evidence of faulty logic, the intuitive knowledge of a missing piece in a puzzle. But that made no sense; he was thirty-four years old and sure that he had himself well-understood to a boring degree. He was not subject to the emotional peaks and swells of the rest of humanity, and though it was a boring existence, it was a solid identity.

Or so he could tell himself in the daytime. But at night, even for the past nine years, the faintest flickers of doubt, a ghostlike breath of dark at the fringe of his mind, had invaded his thoughts, and had made him uneasy _because_ he felt the slightest unease, a foreign sensation—because for a second he had felt slightly confused, as though he were walking along the lip of some dangerous chasm. About to overbalance and fall, fall, but with a sense that it was all false, and that he could catch himself on the floor before he fell too deep. Uncertainty in the external world did not affect Seishirou; it passed him over like smoke, and he did not understand _how_ people could be unnerved by it. Uncertainty in _himself_ terrified him in ways no other person who knew him would think possible, in ways that he skillfully hid from every other soul, even from his conscious mind. The uncertainty and chaos were always just beneath the perfectly calm, analytical architecture of his mind, cool and stable and merciless as concrete—but those nights when even the slightest shadow flickered, he sat up in his living room staring out the open window at the city, smoking and dully wondering why he had the sense that something integral to his identity had shifted just out of line—a fraction, a hair, but the space between that shift and the perfect seam held all the answers he did not have.

_What are you doing, Seishirou? Look at yourself. You're going too far._

Seishirou realized that he was at his apartment door and automatically fishing for his keys in his coat pocket; he opened the door and turned on the lights before kneeling to untie his shoes. The washing machine was silent; his sheets were ready for the dryer. He stepped onto the floor and tossed his keys onto the kitchen counter atop spreads of scrolls, removing his coat and suit jacket and draping them over the back of a chair. By Tokyo standards, his apartment was sprawling, and though stylishly and comfortably furnished it was not at all extravagant or showy.

At the moment his usually-neat table was stacked half a foot high with papers, books, ancient scrolls, and a closed laptop in the small cleared space in front of a chair. Spreads and open books were weighted down on the kitchen counter revealing the chakras, points of energy along the human anatomy, and the more arcane and technical aspects of tantra. Some of the diagrams were very _detailed_; all but one were of a male-and-female couple, and the female had some of the original notes pointing to her body crossed out or edited to correspond to a male body. Notes in Seishirou's messy, calligraphic hand were scrawled in the margins detailing necessary changes due to physical aspects and the more abstract circumstances. One diagram had an arrow pointing to the couple and a note written in a different, more angular hand: _THIS JUST DOESNT DO ANYTHING FOR ME. _Loose-leaf printed papers, packets, and a couple of scrolls were spread around the computer chair. The papers detailing hit-and-miss methods of interpersonal power manipulation were at the bottoms of the stacks, though a few were marked up and left out as auxiliary reference. Relative to the papers spread on the counter, the heaps of reference material on the table far outweighed. Seishirou had done his research, and he had scrimped and scoured the most exclusive and arcane—_damn near impossible to understand—_documents, many of which were accessible to the Sakurazukamori alone, to piece aspects together into one cohesive method. It was a long shot, but it was the closest shot he was ever going to get at such a ludicrous plan. Now was not a time to stand back from that cluttered table and place things in perspective, to realize the staggering enormity of what he was attempting and its horrifying consequences should his impact be too great and yet misfired. He was screwing with a system considered both delicate and impenetrable, transient and subject to micro-undulations and butterflies' wings and, at the same time, _decided _beyond any shadow of a doubt.

It had not started this obsessively; Seishirou had not run to his family's archives and gathered every book he could carry for multiple trips on the first day. It had started as a casual idea that had compounded upon itself, striving to reach perfection in every aspect, unnoticed until Seishirou realized one morning that he had lost a coffee mug because it was hidden among the sheer weight of _paper_.

Seishirou walked into the laundry room, unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves, and gathered the damp, black-and-cream linens out of the washer with one hand while opening the dryer with the other. He smiled to himself, half-focusing on the wet fabric; having a washer-and-dryer was truly a luxury. It would be a pain in the ass to have to run his sheets to the laundromat as often as they needed to be washed lately.

_Why are you doing all of this in the first place? Bring it back to the center—back to the center—_

He dropped the heavy linens in the dryer and slammed the lid.

—_the center is the reason, the reason is the answer. It is possible—no, we've already discussed this. To be honest with myself doubt indicates something I may have missed nine years ago—no, you've already evaluated.—Or are you afraid? No—no, I'm not afraid. That child is mistaken. Mistaken—I know myself too well for this.—_

"…_have you stopped and _realized _that you are trying to stop fate in its tracks for the sake of this one person?"_

Seishirou's hand halted over the 'on' button. He already forgot what he had just done, which knobs and dials he had turned to set the dryer. He stared at his hand with flagging focus.

—_the center?_

He had long since intellectually made the link—it was logical and obvious—but now—

It began as a dim realization, like the slightest catch in the depths of water with Seishirou staring straight ahead, expression perfectly still—creeping up, catching his heart in a barely-audible murmur, holding it as time suspends. A beat, a flutter in the root of his mind. And then, a numb void. His perception of time fuzzed out; he may have stood there for a full five minutes, or so, without noticing their passage.

He _knew_. He didn't know what he knew, but he _knew_. And it was the start.

_I am doing all of this for Subaru-kun._

And, for the first time, Seishirou consciously knew the meaning of fear from the heart.


	2. Shifting Locus

A/N: Thanks to formatting troubles, an underline is equivalent to a strikethrough.

_

* * *

_

_Make new friends, but keep the old.  
One is silver, and the other's gold.  
A circle is round; it has no ends.  
That's how long I want to be your friend._

* * *

" 'Dear Kamui…. I don't know how to start this… but… well… I…' oh, fuck it."

Subaru ripped the current sheet of notebook paper out of his binder, crumpled it up, and hurled it into a nearby trashcan. The trashcan was surrounded by a sparse garden of paper balls that had missed their mark. It was early afternoon, sunny, Wednesday, therefore a school day at CLAMP Campus, and technically time for Subaru's remedial high school-level rhetoric class at the college, though he had elected to use the time space for what he considered more productive projects. He was sitting at an abandoned table under the pavilion students were inclined to call the "Athens" due to the characteristic architecture columns holding the roof aloft.

Subaru sighed and smashed his cigarette into a plastic ashtray bearing the CLAMP Campus mascot pointing accusingly at the offender and telling him to give up smoking now for his own sake. He winced at the soot-washed face.

"_Smoking is still bad for you, you know?"_

_All right, eighth time's the charm. Just write the damn thing._

Subaru tapped the tip of his pen on the fresh sheet of notebook paper blankly. The lines, he noticed, blurred out of focus very easily and became quite painful when demanding attention. With the loss of vision in his left eye concentrating on reading or observing any detail became a painful and inaccurate task, a good reason to stop studying and to care even less about class than he had for a long time. It just reminded him of Seishirou anyway.

_And, by the way, that is a reason that you need to get this damn thing written. Come on, man. Subaru pulled another cigarette out of his pack and lit it nervously. Or Kamui will end up like you someday. Grow some balls for once. For once in your life, don't back down from this. Just do it. No frills, no fancy opening. Just get out what you want to say._

"…'Kamui'…good; step one… 'There is something I need to discuss with you…' …eh…"

Subaru took a long drag of his cigarette, took a deep breath of air, and smashed the cigarette into the ashtray purposefully. _Now or never._ _Just do it._

_----------------------_

"…_I think I am responsible for giving you some bad faullty advice. Well, I mean, when anybody takes my advice that comes from my experience it turns out bad. It turned out bad for me. You see, I don't want you to end up like me, and so far that's where you're headed. Quite plainly. It's not happy over on this side of the neck woods. It's going to hurt a lot of people because you have people to live for, Kamui. I mean, look around you. There are people who love you and worry about you, and you're turning your back on all of them for some lost cause childhood dead somebody who will not make you happy._

_I mean, what I'm trying to say is… look, Fuuma's not coming back unless you die or he dies. And then he'll be dead or you'll be dead anyway. Yeah, I did avocate your path when I dove into your conciousness, more or less. You said that you'd be willing to get Fuuma back even if your life becomes a hell and he doesn't love you back. I guess I'm trying to say… LOOK, do you WANT to be unhappy? Is that it? You're unwilling to see that there might be other people around who can want to make you happy, even if they really can't because they're so fucked up anyway, who are here right now and who love you for who you are and your devotion and your kindness and your perserverence and because they've been through_

_I don't want to see you willingly take the path of the most pain for something you can never have. That's just damn childish. Sorry, but it is, and I know it's hypocritical, but I'm too far gone, and you're so young and you have so much to offer, if only you'd be willing to love somebody else it might be easier on you. Cut bait and leave. You know, find somebody who won't constantly kill your friends and land you in the hospital with your ribs smashed in. Somebody who will be there for you and tend your wounds instead of cause them. Somebody you can come home to at night and who will respect you and"_

_----------------------------- _

_ARGH._ Subaru tapped his pen on the paper and fished his cigarette packet out of his pocket. _God damn it, you look like a fucking stalker. Mention Segawa or something. Wait, you don't know if he's gay or bi or whatever. Just do something—no. No, you'll loose him. He'll go for the better offer, I'm sure of it. If he even listens, which he probably won't. If you're at all caring, if there is one unselfish bone left in your corpse, Sumeragi Subaru, you will push him in any direction but your own. He deserves so much better. Last thing he needs is another depressed deadweight in his life. He needs somebody to make him happy. I'm anything but happiness. And you'll still have Seishirou on your mind all the time. _

_Well, yeah, but won't he have Fuuma on his mind all the time?_ Subaru dragged on his cigarette. _We'll both have them on our minds for a while, but maybe… just maybe… we'll forget them with time and be happy, sort of. If you can ever make anybody happy. Oh, you have too much damn hope for yourself, boy. There's no chance you'll ever forget Seishirou. And then you turn around and ask Kamui to drop Fuuma for YOU? What the HELL is your problem, anyway? _

_Look, just shut up and write the damn letter. _

_--------------------_

"…_I care for you too much to see you turn out like me. Trust me. This sort of life isn't amazing glamoros, or romantic, or amazing, or whatever the hell you might think it is. It's hell. It really is miserable. And it's a dead end. Wishing for what you can't have is futile, and you'll only make yourself miserable doing it. Don't make my mistakes. Will you go out And don't take any offer you get just to drug yourself up with sex. That's a dead end road, you'll die of AIDS and it'll just make you feel more hollow and worthless. For God's sake, if you really DO like people treating you like trash, beating you around and having no respect for you, then you're as fucked up as I am I wish that you would cultivate more self-worth. Because you really, truly are an amazing, wonderful person, Kamui, and I'm not asking that we be pathetic and just lick each others wounds (sort of), but I do think that I want to well, we could do that, but that's what lovers do, and not just because of that, I mean, I'm not trying to get you into the sack, I mean, that's not just—_

_You've kind of been pissing me off lately. All of this blind self-sacrificing nonsense without looking at any other options to make you happy, when there are others. And don't call me a hypocrite; nobody wants me, I'm too old, my roads are closed off. And to give me another way you'd have to_

_All right, what really scares the hell out of me. That day I lost my eye Fuuma looked exactly like a man I once knew. You know, that man who killed Hokuto my sister. Sakurazuka Seishirou, the Sakurazukamori. He's actually a Dragon of Earth, but that's not the point. Kamui, for your own sake do not fall in love with a man like that. Well, you already have, but you have to give up. He will only hurt you and those around you. It's a dead end, it's miserable, and that asshole isn't worthy of you because people like that are pathetic and aren't worth shit and it will only bring you pain. _

_I'm really bad with words and communicating, but I guess what I'm trying to say is, please, please, please please don't give up everything that you have going for you for a lost cause like Fuuma. Trust me, I KNOW it's hard, and I know more than anybody how painful it is, and how he's always on your mind, and how you always think that you can make it better, and how you refuse to give up hope, and how you keep just thinking there has to be a way, and that if you give up you'll regret it, and that he's the only one who can make you happy, but there is somebody else who has fallen in love with you despite being in the same situation and thinking that absolutely, there could be nobody else even if he still loves the other guy and he doesn't know why and wishes to make you happy, to love you and respect you and tend your wounds and provide a place for you to rest and feel safe for once. I Somebody wants to be that to you, even if he's really fucked up and not much better if at all than Fuuma or Seishirou but at least he won't pound your guts through your spine every time he sees you and he would give up smoking for you even if his power would drop and he would never, ever defeat Sei_

_I've been in the same place, and even though you think nobody could ever understand, I of all people could. Please, please take my advice. Be happy enough for the both of us, even though to do that you'd have to dump me so fast and never even attempt to get close to me because I'm walking pain and give up the dark side. It's a decision to be miserable, and the last thing I want to see is you make that choice. And maybe you could pull us both out, or I could help you pull us out, but this is starting to piss even me off, which is saying something since I've been living in this state for eight years Promises and bets made years ago by children are words. Grow up, live for what you can actually have today, and be happy. Strike out on the road you were meant to take and—"_

_------------------------_

Subaru chewed on the end of his pen and furrowed his eyebrows. Finalizing any sort of statement or profusion of emotion, seldom as they occurred, was somewhat of a difficulty amid his grand difficulty of communication in general. He sometimes wondered if his inability to clearly communicate what he was trying to say without hours of deliberate thought on the subject were more a product of dropping out of high school or years of stunted emotional growth he spent in a stupor of depression. Even before the entire Seishirou incident he had communicated poorly, though at the time he was young and the only people to whom he truly cared to speak – Seishirou, Hokuto, and the spirits – understood his simple logic as if they could read his mind. He needed only to say very plainly what he was feeling, and they could fill in the gaps. When they couldn't, Hokuto or Seishirou was always there to translate vague Subaru into plain, coherent Japanese.

_Well, neither one is here right now, and hasn't been for a while, so suck it up and write._ He chewed harder on his pen and tapped ashes into the ashtray. _And assuming that you get your wish, AND hell freezes over and Kamui falls in love with you? You'll hurt him with its fulfillment, and he'll turn into a _You_, if I can even flatter myself enough to think that somebody would ever love me that much. It happened once, and she died in the process of protecting me, so she wasn't stuck on earth to mourn but became an angel or whatever the hell—well, she knew you when you were vibrant and alive, adorable little Subaru-kun, not dead, washed-up angsting, chain-smoking—_

"Subaru?"

Subaru nearly swallowed the cap of his pen. Kamui was walking up the limestone path cut through the grass to the steps of the pavilion. He was breathing with more difficulty than he should have been with such a low level of activity. His upper arms were still bound in strips of bandage, and he still moved with a stiffness that indicated remaining pain in his ribs.

He looked stone ragged.

"Ah—Kamui!" Subaru looked at his cigarette and the now seemingly thick cloud of smoke it was producing, smashed it into the ashtray, and slammed his binder closed over the letter. "It's—ah—here, it's really smoky over here. We'll—we'll move over to this table over here—"

"Oh, don't worry about me—"

"NO! No, your… uh… your lungs don't need to work any more than they're already working. I mean—yeah—because of the—I'm not saying that you NEED the air, but it would be nice—I'm sure—here, come sit down over here. The air is rather clean. Um, wind is out of the west, and we'll be east—WEST—west, of where I was sitting. Uh…"

Subaru took a deep breath. Kamui was cocking his head and carefully examining Subaru as if he thought he was insane.

"…are you all right, Subaru?"

"Fine! Fine, I was just—working on my rhetoric assignment. Nice weather today."

"Don't you have a class right now?"

"What? Yes, I mean, no, I'm, uh, I withdrew. Actually, yeah…" Subaru scratched his head. _Wait a go, dumbass. He thinks you're cracking._ "I do. I'm ditching. Didn't feel like it today. Needed a smoke. Care to sit down?"

Subaru moved over to the furthest west table, even though the smoke was already dissipating and as it were blowing into Kamui's face. Kamui shrugged and nudged one of the crumpled letters by the trashcan with his toe.

"Your aim is terrible."

"AH—" Subaru lunged slightly before stopping himself. Kamui was stiffly kneeling—wincing—and collecting the balls of paper—_don't do anything! He'll look for sure! It's nothing! He won't look—_and then dropped them into the trash blind, still hunched over. Subaru sighed.

_Okay, okay, fine, calm down…_

"Here… you didn't need to do that—"

"I know I didn't." Kamui straightened and winced, nursing his ribs. He leaned against the trash can. "I need to talk to you."

"Oh, well… here, have a seat." Subaru sat down and gestured across the table. "You look like you need to sit down. Why aren't you in class, anyway?"

"It's PE. I'm exempt for the rest of the school year, so I just ditched. It was that or take kilo times for the coach or man the stopwatch. Might as well make good use of the time."

Kamui stiffly sat down across from Subaru and hissed slightly. Subaru moved his arm more protectively over the cover of his binder. He felt as though every word he had written—even scratched out, especially scratched out—was somehow visible. Guilt had to be written all over his face; he was sure.

"Well, I think you would do less damage to yourself running around a track than jumping across rooftops and being pounded into the concrete."

"Yeah, well, if I'm going to be injured again I might as well do it doing something useful. Would be a shame to use up that one action running for a time."

"Yes, I know. My point is—"

"If I'm too ill to run laps, I shouldn't be chasing the Dragons of Earth? Yes." Subaru closed his mouth. "Sorata-san already had this conversation with me."

"Oh." _Don't get jealous, you twit. Sora's straight. There's nothing between them._ "I see. Uh… well…" Subaru sighed. "He has a point. We all worry about you. A dead Kamui is more useless than an alive Kamui on hiatus. And—AND we do care about you, there is that, that's first and foremost, I didn't mean—"

"I know, Subaru."

_Subaru._ _Subaru. Subaru. He keeps saying my name. Oh, stop it, grow up, he doesn't mean anything, he never will, shut up, cool down. Focus. Don't get glassy-eyed. No, NOT on his lips, you pervert—_

"…is something wrong?"

"What?" Subaru stammered.

"You're acting like something's wrong."

"What? No—no, nothing new. Same old. Don't worry about it."

"Does it have something to do with the Sakurazukamori?"

"N—NO! No, not Sei—not him, no. No." _Only partially, though I don't know why in hell he is deserving of my guilt because I am trying to move on. Oh, yeah, I can't move on._ "Not that. Um… you said you wanted to talk?"

"…yeah. Uh…" Kamui looked away. "Well…"

"Yes?" Subaru's heart caught. _CUT IT OUT; THAT'S NOT IT. But it could be, it could be…but he's turning red… he's blushing, I swear he is, I'm not imagining things, he's blushing, oh my god… STOP IT…_

"Are you all right?"

"E—yeah," Subaru swallowed. "Just indigestion. Headache. It's very hot out here."

"Yeah."

"Um… you were saying?"

"… all right." Kamui sighed. "Okay, first… promise you… well, you can't guarantee that… you're going to think I'm crazy."

Subaru sighed. "Kamui, it's my line of work to deal—well, what do I do for a living? Nothing you are going to say could make me thin you are crazy."

"Well, that's why I'm coming to you." Subaru's heart didn't know whether to leap or drop. "You're experienced with this sort of thing. You… well, you won't blow this off and say that I've been getting not enough sleep or something. This seems like your area of expertise."

"Seeing things at night?"

"Well… sort of… not… yeah, but that's not really the problem."

"All right. Start from the beginning."

"…do you know what in incubus is?"

"Of course. They—" Subaru nearly choked. "—um. Well, do _you_ know what an incubus is?"

"They impregnate women in the middle of the night, in their sleep, right?"

"Um—yeah, that's the gist of it. Most women who claimed to have been visited by an incubus were actually having affairs and wanted to hide up pregnancies, but I have seen some actual cases. Um—why?"

"Do you ever—you know—" Kamui went another shade of red. "Uh—you know—feel—_it_?"

"I—ah—beg your pardon?"

"I mean—well—" Kamui concentrated on wringing his shirt. "—well, first off, do incubi attack without—you know—the objective of getting somebody pregnant? Because I—"

"Wait, stop." Subaru waved his hand. "Do you think that you were raped?"

"…yeah."

"…oh." _Oh, fuck. Great._ "Are you sure you didn't have a wet dream?"

Kamui jerked his head up and glared. "I'm DAMN SURE—"

"All right, all right. I meant no offence. It's a probable—it's the hopeful answer. Calm down." Subaru folded his hands in front of his mouth to hide a forming snarl. _Shut up, calm down, he's not yours, he's free game. Doesn't give anybody the right to fuck around with him. _"Now, the female counterpart of the incubus is the succubus; maybe that's what you were—"

"No, this was a guy."

"…you're sure."

Kamui twisted his shirt into a knot.

"…I'm not going to ask."

"I'm pretty fucking sure," growled Kamui.

"All right, fair enough."

"It wasn't an incubus."

"How are you sure?"

"It didn't feel like a—well, I'm sure he was a human. He had very human emotions. That complexity. You know, that darkness, that way that humans usually… I don't know… they all feel as though they have to define their lives in terms of ideals. If that makes any sense whatsoever."

"Yes, it does. Continue."

"That's really the only way I know how to describe it. Anyway… I'll get right to it." Kamui took a deep breath and looked away. "…I think something happened to Fuuma last night."

"…oh…OH…" Subaru cleared his throat. "Oh. Um… yeah, that would explain why you're sensing things… yeah."

"That's not the only thing."

"…oh?"

"I mean… all right." Kamui took a deep breath. "You know how when you walk into a dark room—like, pitch black—and you've been out in the sunlight, you can't see anything even if your eyes are open? You can feel things, but you're still somehow dizzy and disoriented?"

"Yes."

"And then your eyes start to adjust, you see things, shadows and forms and stuff, and you can balance better, you're not so dizzy, and you know more where you are. Your eyes stop hurting and blurring. Everything becomes stable after a while, and you can see distinct shapes? You can walk?"

"Yes."

"It was sort of like that. Well… I mean, becoming aware of what was happening." Kamui's cheeks started to flush again. "First I just thought that I woke up, it was really hot in the room, I thought that for some reason I was—well, I was getting a hard-on for no reason, I was really desperate for somebody to, I don't know, cuddle with or touch or rub on or—_oh god_." Kamui buried his face in his hands. "You must think I'm a complete sicko."

"Um…" Subaru sat absolutely still. _No, kid, I'm enjoying this far too much for my own good._ "No, I understand. It's perfectly natural. Nothing to be ashamed of. It's… uh… part of life." _I need to teach you about life. STOP IT._ "And… well, continue."

"I'm not going to get into further detail."

"Oh." _Damn it._ "Well, just tell me what's important."

"…it got more vivid." Kamui was speaking very quietly, but steadily, back to wringing his shirt into a rag. "Like… soon, there was somebody there I could feel. It started out like my imagination and got clearer. Like that whole opening your eyes in the dark thing. But something was really odd."

"Hn?"

"It was… well, I knew it wasn't me. I don't know how to describe it." Kamui thought for a moment. "…as if… well, the part of 'Kamui' that was in Fuuma was merging with me, but that part of me was being raped, so I became more aware of it myself until it completely merged—well, not completely, not yet—and I could feel everything." He turned an even deeper red. "Very clearly."

"…uh-huh…"

"Like I was losing sense of myself, I wasn't even sure I was in my room anymore, I could even start to see another man over me, merging into a body that wasn't really mine and wasn't really not mine either. And it was really odd—at that moment, I knew everything Fu—the other Kamui knew, I knew what was happening and why it was happening, I knew who that man was, I knew everything, I was aware of Fuuma and both parts of myself and that man all at once, but everything was still shifting around and not completely part of one mind, sort of like scattered thoughts. You know, the tighter you try to hold them, the more they slip away. Well, uh… and then…"

"…go on."

"I…" Kamui bowed his head and muttered into his collar. "gssahame…"

"What?"

"Gussahame…"

"…what? Kamui, we're both adults here. Just spit it out."

"……I-ah…"

"You had an orgasm."

"_WHAT?_"

"It means that you ca—"

"_I know what it means, and YES, but WHY did you have to say it out loud?_"

"Because it's more important than you would think. Kamui…" Subaru grabbed Kamui's shoulder. Kamui was seething and hunched as if he were about to make a break from the table and run. "You have to calm down. I'm trying to talk to you like a mature adult. Come on, this is—well, it's actually a very dangerous form of manipulation. Sex, I mean. That's very important. An orgasm is a moment when the mind is at a divine level of clarity and blankness, susceptible to a higher awareness. It used to be worshiped in some religions—that's the reason for dignified sex cults, not the ones that just want to fuck around all the time—as a way to divine enlightenment. It's a very powerful tool."

"Well, all right, whatever the hell it's _good for_—" Kamui swatted Subaru's hand off his shoulder. "—it happened. And I went completely limp."

"…expected."

"NOT IN THAT WAY!" Kamui jumped up and started to pace violently, hands folded behind his back. "Well… yes… but that's not what I mean! I mean—I was completely relaxed, and there was all of that enlightenment shit—don't ask, because I don't remember, and I really don't want to—but I was fully myself. Like, I was just myself, there was no dark and light Kamui, there was no power, there was no need for balance. And I think—it must have happened that for that moment, Fuuma was himself. And I was aware of all of them—Fuuma, as if he were lying right inside me, not in the sick sense, but like, inside my skin—"

Kamui went slightly red and paused, chewing on a hangnail. Jealousy rose up in Subaru's chest. _Oh, for gods' sake, stop that nonsense. You know that he's in love with Fuuma; nothing will change that. He has hope. Let him have it. He's off limits to you anyway._

"—well, just for a split second. Everything was right in the world. As if we were both whole again. And then I passed out. Didn't wake up until morning, didn't remember a damn thing." Kamui took a deep breath. "I… I wasn't harmed when I woke up, and I do remember that it—hurt—a lot—that I should have been hurt, but I was fine. I was wrapped up in my sheets and gasping. It was stiflingly hot under the covers, and I had to wash my sheets and take a shower before school, but I'm fine. Really. I must not have made any noise or everybody would be in my room in seconds." He looked at Subaru. "You must think I'm insane."

"What? No!" Subaru shook his head. "No, not at all. I've dealt with cases like this. It's actually quite common, that if one thing happens to somebody close to you you'll feel it. And, well, you're doubly susceptible since part of you _is_ in Fuuma right now. So it's sort of happening to you, whatever happens. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I mean—well, if Fuuma decided to take a lover in his dark form, you learned about it in the rudest way possible. Were you able to identify the man who was—well, raping you?"

"Well…he seemed familiar. I couldn't move my arms or do anything. I really don't remember." Kamui sighed and crossed his arms. "It's not as if he was giving out strong vibes of love or anything. He was just fucking around. He was almost like a void."

The class bell rang, but neither one paid attention.

Subaru's heart lurched. …_no, no, NO, that's impossible. NO. There are a lot of people who are like that. A depressingly large number of people, people who just fuck around with anybody to feel loved. He's not Seishirou. He can't be Seishirou. He would never—_

"I mean—he had definite emotions, he was definitely human, but there was something about him that was terrifying up that close. Like he could just as easily rip my head off as cradle it. Like he was completely empty at his core, even though he was full of emotions. Hollow. But there are a lot of people like that." Kamui clutched his side. "Whoever he was, he has no right to use Fuuma like that."

"Fuuma is not in charge of that body right now."

"But he was for a split second last night!"

"…you're right." Subaru thought for a moment. "…you're absolutely right."

"Huh?"

"Never mind.

"…all right."

"But do you remember anything—_anything_, the smallest thing—about this man?"

"…nothing small about him." Kamui coughed and sat down. Subaru smacked his forehead. "He had a cold smile. I mean—well, when I said void, I meant everything. He must have been pretty. Luciferian-grade pretty. I think he got some sick perversion out of staring into my eyes and watching the reactions—"

"What about his eyes?"

"Huh?"

"Were they… did he have a blind eye? A marble eye, completely white?"

"I don't remember."

"…Oh. I see."

"Do you think he's that man who killed your sister?"

"What? No, I doubt it." _Liar._ "That's not his style. He never touches other humans in that way. Never. He hates any sort of close, intimate contact. Even if there's no feeling behind it, no. He doesn't do that. He just kills them."

"Oh."

"There's not much else to say. If Fuuma has a boyfriend, so much the worse for the boyfriend." Subaru subconsciously reached for his cigarette pack in his shirt pocket and stopped himself. "I'll seal off your room tonight so that if he has any other…encounters, you won't be affected."

"All right. Thank you so much for listening."

"Oh…" Subaru was tempted to pat Kamui on the shoulder, but felt as if it would be somehow inappropriate or seemingly too forward. _Even though I've done it before._ _What the hell is wrong with you, Subaru? Double jealousy, you pathetic twat? You don't even know if it was Seishirou. He really doesn't do that sort of thing, so stop worrying. Right now. _ "No, this is my area. I'm glad that you felt that you could talk to me. Nothing embarrassing about this at all; trust me. I'll fix your room so that you're spared from this nonsense from now on. Hey." Subaru forced a wan smile. "If you didn't talk to me you might not be sleeping for months."

"Yeah. Oh, I'm really late for class." Kamui stood slowly. "I'd better go."

"Oh, yeah. Right. Well…"

"Hey, thanks for listening to me."

"Oh!" Subaru nodded and pulled out his cigarette pack. "It was no problem. I enjoy getting the chance to talk to you."

"Even about this stuff?"

"Well, whatever."

"Ah." Kamui smiled. Subaru almost felt a stupid grin crack his face. _Stop. It. Right. Now. Cold shower and a run. _

"Well, I'd better go. I'll see you later."

"Yeah, later."

Kamui waved over his shoulder and left. Subaru watched him and pulled a cigarette out of his pack with his teeth, meditating on many things and in sore need of a smoke. He sighed and blew a thin stream of smoke, trying to soothe his nerves into a relative state of placid compliance.

Kamui's hands became visible when he turned the corner.

Subaru almost swallowed his cigarette.

…_oh… shit…_


	3. Things Beyond Survival

"Do you think people who kill for no reason are hollow?"

"Huh?"

"I mean… people who take life for no reason."

"I know what you meant." Yuuto started to laugh. "Well, that sort of goes hand-in-hand with what you were asking that poor girl earlier, doesn't it? Huh…" He took a sip of tea and hissed. "Still hot…"

"Hn."

Satsuki prodded the lemon slice floating at the top of her mug with her pinky and swilled it absentmindedly, leaning heavily on her arm to the point that it almost folded over completely. She and Yuuto were taking an afternoon break at the table set up by BEAST, as of yet still alone. The base had been empty all morning.

The steam started to fog her glasses. Satsuki removed them and cleaned the lenses on the hem of her overshirt.

"Did I make you think?" asked Yuuto.

"Hm?"

"I mean… did I actually make our Cyber Girl ponder something? I did prove that there are some things only age and no amount of intelligence can emulate?"

" 'Emulate'. That's a rather large word." _Stop flirting with me. I like it too damn much._

"It's your shining influence. My mind is being expanded just hanging around you. It must be all of that rampant mental energy."

"That's enough." Satsuki replaced her glasses over her eyes and took a sip of tea. "I'm quite serious. I want to hear your viewpoint."

"Why?" Yuuto smiled and rested his chin on steepled hands. _Always closing his eyes when he is smiling._ _It's as if he's trying to hide something. Surely there has to be something up there besides fluid._ "Does my viewpoint provide such inspiration?"

"I am merely curious." _You have no idea, Yuuto. So simple and so obvious. The most brilliant bits of information, it is said, come from unconscious comprehension, something that seems to be your specialty. Without effort. A flow of awareness. I do so envy that—_

"Well…" Yuuto set his teacup on his saucer. "You want to hear what I think?"

"Yes."

"All right. This makes for lovely teatime conversation." He stretched his arms behind him and popped his neck. "This is why I do so love time with you. You listen to my ramblings."

"Then let us get to that point."

Yuuto waved his hands and laughed. "Fine, fine."

Satsuki's stomach dropped_. I hate it when he does that. I like it too much. I do not need this nonsense right now._

"How you define a 'hollow' person… well… let's start with an idea." Yuuto leaned back on his folded hands with relaxed grace. _Damn good. Damn._ "Well… let's see… hm… ah!" Yuuto lowered his hands, fingers still loosely interlaced, as if pointing at Satsuki. "How do you define a human?"

"_Homo sapien._"

"Okay, fair enough. You can say that. But that's like saying… huh… that's like saying that BEAST is a collection of silicon, electrical impulses, and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor microchips, binary zeroes and ones, that's all."

"That _is_ what the BEAST is, Yuuto—"

"I'm not finished; let me finish. Trust me."

"All right."

"Well… uh…" Yuuto moved his hands as if trying to encompass something. "There's something else THERE… just above the surface, a feeling, a unified consciousness that makes all of that stuff make sense. Fall into place. It's beautifully synchronized, if you think about it and throw chaos variables into every minute reaction in that machine. It's almost as if it's conscious. Same effect with living things. We're masses of carbon-based chemical miracles, but a human… what _is_ a human, what is that thing beyond the surface that defines us?"

_That's it?_ "I am not impressed, Yuuto."

"Oh, good, because neither am I." Yuuto started to laugh again. "I'm trying to speak your language. A bunch of very technical run-around and preface before getting to the point. Right."

"Whatever." Satsuki took another sip and watched Yuuto over the rim of the cup. "I need no translation to fill in blanks, thank you just the same."

"I sense some malice in your voice. Have I offended you?"

"No, I just know that people who don't know what they are really talking about try to speak with redundantly wordy prose to cover up their absolute lack of knowledge or comprehension of a subject. People who really know what they are talking about are able to define things in simple terms and analogies."

"Oh… _ouch._ Shot down." Yuuto laughed. "Touché, touché. I agree with you. I didn't expect you to be impressed. But… ah, this is a very difficult thing to put in words. I don't think anybody fully understands it, you see. Hm… ah!" Yuuto clapped. "How do I define a human… well…" He folded his hands under his chin again. "Humans define themselves in terms of variables not related to basic survival. We live for things beyond survival. We create our own morals, our own reasons, try to validate our existence in terms of things abstract and originating not in the physical world but in our minds. Humans are remarkable—" He took a sip of tea and coughed. "—excuse me; still hot. Um, where was I? Ah, remarkable. Yes. We define our entire lives around luxuries not related to survival. We survive for love, for success, for honor, for meaning, for knowledge, for strength, to prove ourselves, to fulfill abstract ideals."

"…huh…"

"You see, the most precious things to humans are those they do not need." Yuuto sighed. "You don't need love. You don't need knowledge, or honor, to physically survive. I mean, yeah, when you're hurt or dying that's foremost on your mind, but that's a survival adaptation. We're still bound by the whole mortal coil business. But… yes, there isn't a meaning to life without those things we create in our minds. Our ideas of sin and morality, completely unrelated to survival. You know survival of the fittest? Humans don't adhere to that, we have chivalry, and ethics, and due process. And yet we are the only ones to kill without instinctive reason. So bound in this human condition both ways! And you say—well, when people say that they can't live without something like love, they in fact can, but there is no point to living anymore. Survival in itself, just spreading the seed and continuing the species, is in itself no goal. It's a means to a greater end, something—beyond ourselves." Yuuto sat back smugly. "And so we are human."

"…oh."

"What do you say to that, Satsuki-chan? Always distinguishing ourselves from animals in our high ideals and reasons for living, our ways of filling our voids to make us feel as if we have divine reason?"

"…I do agree." Satsuki took another sip. "That was along the lines of my original theory."

"Oh, so great minds do think alike!"

_It wasn't a total lie. I was thinking that, but not in such simple terms. Not so cleanly. Damn you, Yuuto._

"Now, hollow people—"

"Are looking for something to fill the void. For reason, or validation."

"Or they're trying to drag everybody down with them. Hollow only by relative terms, darling. Misery loves company. But do you know what I think is the most pathetic thing about hollow people?"

"No."

"They make themselves that way." Yuuto poured more tea into his glass and speared another lemon slice with a toothpick. "They choose to be unhappy, to have all of these 'oh woe is me I'm so dark and tormented' reasons for being the way that they are when all they're trying to do is make themselves look strong or deep or sensitive, something like that. They choose not to be happy because being happy is somehow, sadly, linked with being vacuous. Superficial. But depression is a very common mask for true superficiality. People look at depression and think, 'Wow, how deep,' when in fact it can be a very shallow mask. Indeed, in this day and age, a group mentality, so sanctioned."

"And there are no people with reason for depression?"

"I didn't say that. I said 'hollow' people, dear."

_Stop calling me that. Please._ "And there are no hollow people who are mere cowards?"

"Ah, cowards in so many ways."

"To fear emotions, their own vulnerability, and so in the fashion of common bullies label those who live with their emotions as weak while they in fact speak of their own fears of themselves. And… to fear being considered the same. Weak-minded people raised in a society where emotion is weakness, and so take on this belief to gain society's label as 'tormented', 'deep', 'strong', or 'cool', so romanticized."

"Yes…"

"And in that…" Satsuki took a sip and smirked. "…it is to say that to be depressed, fulfill expectations, feel some gravity in one's transactions and to respect conventions… is as much filling a void as not. It is just as pointless in the grand scheme of things to go merely with ease or with a 'flow', as you like to say, as it is to try to fabricate reason for every movement."

"Very good!" Yuuto motioned toward the ornate cookie dolly. "Have a biscuit."

"I'm not hungry."

"You're too skinny. No, eat, eat. Have a flan. It's lovely. I made it myself this morning."

"…hn…"

"It's fresh. I used a lot of sugar on the top. Strawberry. Your favorite. Come now." Yuuto rotated the tier so that the flan in question was facing Satsuki. "It has your name on it."

Satsuki smiled to herself and took the flan. "You do like to play around with eggs, don't you?"

"Harbingers of strong emotions. I manipulate them well."

…_what?_ "I beg your pardon?"

"Eggs, I mean. Make cakes good enough to make you cry. I've developed quite a talent." He smirked across the table. Satsuki forced herself to stare back at him and quell the feeling that her stomach was about to melt out.

_God._ _Damn. You. Stop. It._

"Quite the eligible bachelor, aren't you?"

"A prime catch." He tapped himself on the head with his forefinger. "I could make all of the food while my wife takes care of the technical things. Wiring and suchlike. And I'd never make her call the repairman. I'd be a good, trusting house-husband."

Satsuki's heart skipped. _What the HELL is he playing at, anyway?_ "Such a lucky wife for you."

"Well, I get to do what I like, so I win, at least. I'd rather bake cakes than muck around in the attic with chords and the rats and suchlike. I don't like rats."

"They're rather more enjoyable than humans sometimes."

"Oh, how so?"

"They don't ramble."

"…oh!" Yuuto clutched at his chest and laughed. "You wound me, Satsuki-chan. Well, you _did_ ask me to go off."

"I know." Satsuki smiled. "I did ask for it."

"Ah! There it is!"

"…what?" _Oh don't even say it—_

"That smile! It's beautiful. I do wish I saw it with sincerity more often."

_This is an excellent time for somebody to interrupt. Please. Door needs to burst open. Kanoe, Nataku, Kamui, Seishirou, I don't fucking CARE—actually, don't, do, I—fuck, I don't know…nobody come in and see how red I am—shit—_

"Um…" Satsuki coughed and cleaned her glasses again. "I have many things on my mind."

"Or you are forcing yourself."

"Oh, really?" Satsuki replaced her glasses over her eyes and stared at Yuuto. "And am I one of those hollow people about which you so eloquently spoke?"

"No, you're just reserved. But I do wish you would open up more." Yuuto looked over his shoulder. "And perfect timing."

"Kanoe."

"Yes, and it seems that she's in quite a temper."

Kanoe usually was in a temper, or at least distraught as of late, so the approaching presence was not unusually unnerving. Satsuki shrugged and took a sip of her tea.

The doors burst open.

"Ah, Kanoe!" Yuuto waved over his shoulder. "You're just in time. We have lemon—"

"Where's Kamui?"

"Eh?"

Satsuki snorted to herself. _Oh, yeah. BEAST told me about that last night. God, what a show—wow, Kanoe looks a mess._ The jealous part of her took satisfaction in this. Kanoe looked as though she had just been resurrected from the crypt. Her normally cool, well-groomed image had been shattered. _So much the cool Kanoe, revealing her true colors under pressure.__What a bitch._

"…which Kamui?" asked Yuuto.

"_OUR Kamui_! Where is he?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him in two days. Here…" Yuuto set a small cookie on a saucer and offered it to Kanoe. "Have a cookie."

Kanoe smacked the dish out of Yuuto's hand and hauled him up by the necktie. Satsuki clutched the arms of her chair but remained seated and kept her face smooth. _Stupid, stupid bitch._ _So easily shattered under the slightest pressure. Honey, put your dress back on. It's falling off. As usual._

"I DON'T NEED THIS NONSENSE RIGHT NOW, YUUTO. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I SAW IN MY SISTER'S DREAM, YOU HAVEN'T BEEN UP ALL NIGHT SEARCHING THE WHOLE DAMNED CITY—"

"He was at the Sakurazuakmori's house."

Kanoe stopped cold, slowly looked at Satsuki, and dropped Yuuto.

"…oh." She smoothed out her dress and tried to smooth her hair back. Yuuto sat up and shook the pain out of his head from his fall.

"…that's… great. Just great." She smoothed her hair incessantly with shaking hands, opening her mouth as if she wanted to say something but could not force the words out. Yuuto pulled himself up and shoved a chair under Kanoe's legs as she collapsed.

"…oh… thanks," she said, blindly accepting a saucer of tea from Yuuto. She gulped the entire cup. "…why?"

"Making friends, I assume." Yuuto refilled the glass and dropped in a lemon. "I think it's great that he's getting to know all of his coworkers so well. It's a great work ethic. Win the acceptance of the troops, and the general will have support at his weakest hour."

_Like any of us give a damn._ Satsuki narrowed her eyes at Kanoe, who was now gasping and clutching at her chest, holding the glass weakly with loose fingers. _Like he really gives a damn._ _The best manipulators are the most likable people. _

"Well, getting to know in the Biblical sense."

"…what?" said Kanoe vaguely.

"Oh… oh my!" Yuuto started laughing. "Well, well, well. He _has_ been busy, hasn't he? Satsuki-chan, have you been spying on people again?"

_Maybe._ _Just maybe. Probably enjoying it too much._ "Only as I am instructed by Kanoe-san."

"Oh—oh really?" Kanoe looked at Satsuki. "And why didn't you tell me?"

_I was watching the show._ "Did not see the need."

"Or otherwise occupied."

Satsuki glared at Yuuto. _Asshole._

"What?" asked Kanoe.

"You don't get it?"

"I'm afraid that I don't. Look—Sakura—that _man_ is going to screw things over for us—and—according to my sister's dream—I don't know how—but he is—and he has to stay away from Kamui—"

"Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is love with its back turned."

"…huh?"

"Terry Pratchett."

Kanoe thought for a moment, gasped, and covered her mouth as though she were going to choke. Yuuto snorted.

" 'Love with its back turned' in so many ways, isn't it? And I assume you know exactly what I mean, Satsuki-chan."

"What?"

"Viewing diplomatic proceedings, I assume."

Satsuki smirked. _Oh yes._ "Well, there is a thermostat control in Sakurazuka's bedroom."

"Goodness!" Yuuto whacked Kanoe on the back, the latter of whom nearly doubled over in numb shock. "I will never understand what women like about gay men. Then again, I have my thing with lesbians that most women don't understand. Except for other lesbi—"

"Yuuto, Satsuki, shut up." Kanoe stood up and began to pace, now thoroughly distraught. "This is—_really_—bad. Really—really… really…"

"I don't see what's so bad about it." Yuuto shrugged. "So Kamui found himself a boyfriend. That's cute. At least the guy is on our side—"

"It's _Sakurazuka Seishirou_," she hissed. "And you don't know how frighteningly this fulfills my sister's new dream."

"…huh? I assume it wasn't 'All You Need is Love', now was it? Put aside our weapons and sing?"

"NO!" Kanoe clutched her hair and paced faster. "There is so much beyond the friends—lovers—thing, all right? This is horrendously dangerous. Horrendously. This sort of things renders sanity in intact people. And our Kamui is already on a knife's edge. He's not INTACT. And the last thing he needs—last thing he needs—is that mercenary bastard worming into his psyche. Gaining his power. Doing whatever the hell else—"

"Giving him a good whipping?"

Satsuki almost giggled. For some reason she was having mental images of a catholic schoolgirl Fuuma being whipped by his ungodly priest.

"YUUTO, THIS IS _SERIOUS_!" Kanoe stopped pacing and hugged herself protectively, rubbing her arms as if there was a sudden chill. Her dress truly was beginning to fall off. Satsuki blinked. She hadn't even bothered to lace the dress properly, she wasn't wearing shoes, and her makeup appeared to be at least a day old, or slept in. It was direly unlike Kanoe to be so disheveled over such a small issue.

"I think that you're blowing things far out of proportion." Yuuto took the cup out of Kanoe's loose fingers and set it on the table behind him. "It's not like he's going to find love and want to defend the world of his loved ones or something. He's just fucking. Trust me." He smiled. "Men can fuck without feeling a damned thing. We're horny brutes through and through. Don't let it worry you."

Kanoe didn't respond.

"…or are you just jealous?"

Kanoe snapped, hurled a plate at Yuuto, and stomped out the door. Yuuto narrowly ducked. The plate grazed his shoulder and smashed into the wall.


	4. Entering a Stalemate

"The future is always one, and it will never change."

"Are you really so sure about that?"

Hinoto weakly looked up at the pale figure traversing the viscous lake of her dreams, walking across the fluid and sending rings across the surface with every step. The waves lapped at the tendrils of her hair and the hem of her robe.

Water was dripping from the black sky.

"Kakyou, isn't it?"

"Are you still mourning the death of that boy?"

"Not so much his death as the death of my will, such as it is."

"…oh."

Kakyou perched as if on an invisible chair next to Hinoto and crossed his legs. Though blind, Hinoto always sensed Kakyou as a serene, hopeless presence, as of late with the paradoxical tendency to cite the theory that the future was undecided when he should have known damn well that it was always preordained. She exhaled through her nose.

"My shadow is fast approaching, Kakyou. You should leave this place lest I harm you. Well you know that a dreamseer can harm another dreamseer though we cannot harm those who live in the time continuum."

"I know." Kakyou traced patterns in the water with his toe. "But I still feel that we must talk. As you know, you will not harm me, and that if you would in some way kill me I would be much obliged. But it will not come to pass."

"What do you want?"

"You have seen what is happening. The future is becoming… how should I say… well… more or less, altered in the details. Different routes to the same inevitable fate for the world."

Hinoto drew further into her robe. The bells along her garment jangled. The slight movement disturbed multiple clashing rings of disturbance along the surface of the water.

"I know, Kakyou, and there is nothing we can do about it, as you also know."

"…I know."

Hinoto sniffed and burrowed further into her robe. _It would be nice if he would comfort me, somehow. Curses, this useless crying nonsense again.  
_

_—__And you would like that, wouldn't you?—_

Hinoto ignored her smirking reflection and looked over her shoulder at Kakyou weakly, not so much to see him as to further sense his presence.

"Kakyou?"

"Yes?"

"Does it not annoy you that we can do nothing for these people?"

"Of course it does." Kakyou sighed. "I… well, I guess I'm sorry for bothering you. I just felt as though I should check with somebody to see if my dreams were… I don't know… right."

"Do you have a reason to begin to doubt your dreams?"

_—__Because he's beginning to believe the girl's nonsense about the future being undecided.—_

_Hush. Be nice.  
_

"…not really." Kakyou stood. "Just dreams in general, I guess. Out of curiosity… did you see…?"

"The death?"

"Yes."

"And this is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper?"

"…of course."

"I see."

"And the Shinken…?"

"Yes."

"Well, if the future is changed, my dream will not be realized. I mean… sort of… enters a stalemate for a while. And then the battle is only between individual humans and not for the fate of the world."

Hinoto smiled to herself. "Of course, the reason they are fighting in the first place to preserve the earth. So that they can fight over things such as this. Love, possession, fulfillment. To worry over those things, Kakyou, is a luxury, you see, only achieved when survival is ensured. These are the things for which humans survive."

"I know. God, trust me, I know."

"…I'm sorry, Kakyou."

"No, it's all right." Kakyou nodded with a smile that could not be called so much genuine as ironic. "Games such as love have high stakes and high casualties. I accepted the risk."

"Or could you not help it?"

"…I could have pushed her away. But… huh… no." Kakyou turned and walked off. "I wouldn't trade it, even now. Thank you for your time."

_—__Does he really mean that?—_

_HUSH. "_Oh, thank you for visiting."

_—__Beings like to claim that they would suffer for love, but in the end they'd rather not. They're as shallow as they pretend not to be.—_

"Oh, shut up."

* * *

"…the fact that Hinoto-hime is actin' oddly lately. I mean, yeah, when I went'n talked to 'er she was all mysterious as she usually is, you know, self-possessed and sorta filled with fragile sadness, like a—a—well, sorta like a glass jar filled with sadness, but, instead of sadness it's water? Like it looks calm-like and whatnot but you know that's because it's pure and there's… uh…"

"Hm."

"Am I makin' any sense at all?"

"I know what you are trying to say."

"Well, uh, like that. Do you think somethin's up?"

Arashi sighed and scraped the remnants of curry off of a plate into the sink with the back of a fork under running water and set both in the dishwasher. "She has been given a heavy cross to bear. She had to watch Saiki-kun die in the very way that she dreamed without being able to help him. And I am sure that she is in a great deal of pain knowing our fates and being unable to aid in any way. Helplessness is a crippling burden."

"Oh. Literally, huh. And blinding. Get it? Hah?"

Arashi cringed. Sorata set a spoon he had been using to scrape plates on the rim of the sink and scratched the back of his head thoughtfully. "Well, if I were her I'd be rather flattered that a fella decided to die for me."

Arashi slammed a plate and a heavy spoon into the sink and stomped up the stairs.

"…HEY! Nee-chan!" Sorata threw his current work into the sink with a resounding cascade-clash and ran to the bottom of the stairs. He caught himself on the handrail and leaned forward as though seconds from charging up after her, holding himself back only out of what he hoped Arashi would interpret as propriety. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean any of that! It was jus' a joke, y'know? I—I really didn't mean that! I feel terrible! I swear! I mean—I'm not trying to be—I mean—well—I'm trying to make light of the situation—and then I'm really not, I mean, I'm not meaning any disrespect!—and I'm not putting any pressure on you, Nee-chan, that's not it, I swear, I'm not implying—I—ah—oh, fuck…"

_Wait a go, fucktard. You really did it this time. / _Sorata allowed his hand to slide down the guardrail and stood awkwardly at the foot of the stairs, divided between charging after Arashi and giving her time to cool down. The water was still running over the dishes in the sink. / _You can't do a damn thing right where she's concerned. Well, she's too damn hyper, but you KNOW that! She doesn't appreciate your jokes. Just—she knows that you didn't mean anything bad, she has to, you're not that kind of guy. Surely everybody can see that. Can't they?_

Sorata shoved his hands into his jacket pockets awkwardly and bounced slightly in place, still wondering whether to earn points by finishing the dishes—the _right _way, for once, show her that he _had_ been listening to her instructions all this time—or by rushing up to Arashi and apologizing on bended knee, as usual. She never took well to the latter option. She seemed to take it almost as some form of offence.

_Well, in this day and age you can't even offer to hold a girl's hand without her getting all indignant. Liberated women, indeed. Things were much easier back when. Now you have to play a million games and—well, I guess it wasn't any easier then than now. Women still like to feel protected, don't they, no matter how strong they are? I mean, hell, I wouldn't mind a woman protectin' me, so why should it be any different…  
_

The front door slammed. Sorata sighed and turned around, smoothing his hair back.

"Oh, hey, Subaru."

"Hey."

Subaru slammed his shoulder bag into a chair under the table and dropped into an adjacent chair, crossing his legs and pulling his cigarette pack out of his breast pocket. He nudged a cigarette up with his thumbnail and pulled the cylinder out of the pack with his teeth, fishing in his pocket with his other hand.

"Hey, no smoking in the house."

Subaru glanced sideways at Sorata, stood up, scraping the chair sharply across the floor in the process, and stomped back out the door.

"…hey!" Sorata followed Subaru to the porch. "Hey, what the hell is wrong with you? You're worse than usual!"

"Hm." Subaru lit the cigarette and shoved his lighter back into his breast pocket, cradling the roll between his lips loosely.

"Did somethin' happen at school or somethin'?"

"No."

"Well, then, what the hell is wrong?"

"_Nothing_, Sorata-san. _All right_?"  
"Jeez, fine, all right. I'll stop asking. Do you want to know what's wrong with me?"

"No."

"Nee-chan's all pissed at me because I stuck my foot in my mouth again and offended her somehow, and I was only tryin' to cheer her up, and now I'm stuck with a sinkfull of dishes and no help, and I'm as sure as hell not going to ask her for help right now. And all I was trying to do was be nice."

"Hm."

"Did you find Yuzuriha?"

"No."

"Did you even _look_?"

"No."

"WHAT?" Sorata grabbed Subaru's shoulder. "You and Kamui were supposed to do that! What the hell happened?"

"Kamui has it covered."

"WHAT? Why aren't you with him? Did you have a fight or somethin'?"

"No."

"THEN WHY THE HELL DID YOU LEAVE HIM ALONE?"

"He's not alone."

"...oh." Sorata released his grip on Subaru's shoulder. Subaru turned away and took a long drag of his cigarette. The smoke clouded the late evening air. Sorata huffed. He loathed cigarettes; their very nature was disgusting and polluting, something considered cousin to the sin of murder by his upbringing. The view of the bruise-pink late evening sunset was being ruined by the haze.

"Then… who's he with? Karen-san? Seiichirou-san?"

"Segawa Keiichi."

"That kid? Jeez!" Sorata clawed at the air as though trying to squeeze an invisible neck. "It's good that Kamui's makin' friends, but for God's sake, he's a _civilian_! This is Dragon of Heaven work, Subaru! What the FUCK were you thinking? He's going to get fucking KILLED!"

Subaru sighed and released a thin stream of smoke into the air, notably crestfallen and slouching even more than was his custom. The eyelid not covered by bandage was drooping to the point that all green was obscured by thick lashes. "Because, Sorata, I didn't want to interfere with their evening out. All right? I would be the third wheel."

"Fuck, it's not like they're datin' or somethin'." Sorata grabbed Subaru by the shoulders and spun him around. "All right, Kamui's alone, fucking injured and recently released from the hospital from having his ribs smashed up and a fucking rod shoved clear through his stomach—he might fall apart any minute, you probably should follow him around with duct tape—with a poor guy what recently lost his whole family, and all because you're too much of a pussy to assert yourself and tag on his ass like white on rice, which is what you _damn well should be doing_!"

"You don't understand."

"No, you're right, I probably don't. I don't understand how you could stand there smoking like you think you're really fucking cool—"

"I do not think I am—"

"—when you really have no guts whatsoever. Grow a fucking spine."

"All right." Subaru pushed Sorata's hands off of his shoulders. "If there is the slightest sign of trouble, I promise that I will go out immediately."

"ARGH." Sorata stomped into the house, slamming the screen door behind him with such force that it bounced back open, and stomped back out with his cap and sans his apron before the door had fully stopped jolting against the doorframe. "Fine. I'll go look after Kamui. You know damn well he can't produce a spirit shield yet, so you'd have no way of knowin' what's up until it's too late. Spineless cur. Good person, spineless cur."

"Thank you."

"Just… finish the dishes." Sorata jumped over the hedges. "Tell the Nee-chan I'm sorry and I'll be back if she comes down."

* * *

_It's really lovely out here at night…Great weather… Love the lights… Oh, fuck, I think I'm broke; I'm not going to make Keiichi-san pay for everything…_

Kamui sighed and fingered through his pocket, mentally counting bills and trying to remember exactly how much money he had left. He and Keiichi were sitting at a ramen cart in a lantern-decked alleyway in the Mejirou area, one of the few untouched areas of the city. Keiichi had been rambling for hours straight, it seemed, and Kamui was allowing his attention to wander while trying to maintain a polite look of interest. The result was that he looked quite glazed.

"…and then, well, I'd fly all over the city." Keiichi spread his arms so suddenly that Kamui had to block with a sore arm. He winced. Keiichi glanced at Kamui and recoiled.

"Oh—oh god!" He grabbed Kamui's arm gently. "I'm so sorry! I completely forgot about this! It—did I hurt you? I'm so sorry—"

"It's all right, Keiichi." Kamui held up his free hand in assurance and gently pulled away. "I've gotten much worse. I heal very quickly. Don't worry."  
"But they're broken!"

"It's all right, Keiichi. Really." Kamui returned to his ramen and stirred the chicken around in the broth with a deep, ladle-like spoon. "Um… I'm sorry, what were you saying about flying?"

"Oh, I was just continuing on my superhero thing, you know. The childish wishing nonsense. Don't mind me." He laughed. "I ramble a lot. Just kick me when you want me to shut up."

"Oh, no, I really don't mind at all. It's… rather interesting…"

"Oh, really?" Keiichi picked up his bowl and tilted the broth into his mouth. He mumbled into the sloshing mixture. "Then--what--did I say?"

"Um…" _Oh, shit, think of something, fast…_ "You want to become a superhero to protect the ones you love."

"Sort of moved past that, but yeah." Keiichi set the bowl on the counter and gave a satisfied sigh. Half of the broth had been downed. _And, miraculously, there isn't a drop on his shirt. Must be good at this. Damn._ "That's good stuff. Well, in any case, you got the gist of it and missed the nonsense. But I like the nonsense the most; that's the fun part." He looked at Kamui's untouched ramen. "Are you going to eat that?"

"Um… oh…" Kamui swilled the chicken and onions around and took a small sip. "I'm not very hungry. But this is good. My compliments to the chef."

The man behind the high, glass counter nodded and continued to watch a baseball game on a small portable TV, leaning on the counter with one hand. The lantern and overhead lights were glaring off of the glass in a fashion Kamui was tempted to think of as enchanting if not somehow comforting. The casualty of the setting was comforting, for once. For once, he was reminded, behind the glass windows building the city there was intended to be light and life. Television was still broadcasting baseball; there were people behind the screen, running the radio waves, the cameras, announcing, playing, attending the game, trying to forget their problems for the time being, if not succeeding well, at least trying. There were other people in the city picking up the poor reception from the distant, still-standing television towers. Things seemed right for once in this capsule.

_This must be one of those small things I'll remember all of my life. One of those things. Um. I guess it should feel more poignant or something, but… it's kind of without glamour…funny how the mind works when it's not being fucking annoying.  
_

"Come on, eat up!" Keiichi fished a piece of beef out of his ramen and slurped it out of his spoon. The crowd on the television cheered as the announcer declared a home run. "You eat like a girl. Well, like a starving girl; I've known girls who eat almost as much as I do, and they're your size. Smaller, even. But that's not the point. The point is, you need to eat. You're healing! There's a lot of good protein in that chicken for you! Vitamins, nutrients! Are you anorexic?"

"What? No—no, just not hungry."

"How can you be not hungry?" Keiichi scooped a large piece of chicken out of Kamui's ramen with his spoon and shoved it toward Kamui's mouth. "Come on, eat!"

"I'm not—"

"Eat!"

"I'm—"

"I won't have any of this depression nonsense! You're alive, so eat and grow strong so that you can preserve what you have! Even if you don't feel like it, you need to heal, Kamui. You need to eat."

Kamui sighed and looked up at Keiichi. "We need to go keep looking for Yuzuriha."

"Eat first!" Keiichi grabbed Kamui's jaw and forced it open, tilting the spoon between his teeth. Kamui made small gagging noises and clutched at Keiichi's wrists. The ramen man ignored them, tensely watching the game and chanting to himself. "I made you stop because you were getting exhausted, and if you really are so worried about wasting time, you'll eat up now! Because we're not leaving until the whole bowl of ramen is gone."

Kamui choked on the chicken and coughed violently. Keiichi dropped the spoon into the ramen with a splash and patted Kamui on the back. Kamui gasped and swallowed properly.

_He's going to fucking kill me someday..._

"All right!" Kamui picked up the huge bowl and hefted it toward his mouth. "I'll eat! You win!" He smiled to himself behind the bowl. "You've made your point, all right? I'll eat. Then we go find Yuzuriha."

"I mean—oh!" Keiichi helped Kamui steady the bowl. "Is this too spicy for your stomach? I know the doctor demanded easy foods for you to digest—"

"It's fine; it's just chicken broth." Kamui took a breath. "I don't think I was supposed to eat that piece of chicken, though."

"Oh, sorry. If you get sick we can stop at a quick stop for a while. I'll buy something so that you can use the restroom."

"Keiichi!—"

"Hey, it's cool. I understand. It happens to everybody. God, this one time a friend of mine and me had, like, five plates of sushi—"

"Keiichi! God! I really don't want to know!" Kamui gasped and set the bowl of ramen on the counter, sloshing broth all over the wood. His stomach was already beginning to growl painfully. "That's the best case scenario anyway right next to nothing happening."

"More worried that your guts will just fall out? Stomach will turn inside-out?"

"That sounds about right."

"Start bleeding out your ass?"

_—__rape—_

Kamui choked and banged his head on the counter. _No, no, no, no, not this again. It's over. It's over. Nothing really happened to you, it happened to Fuuma, it happened to Fuuma, it was his choice, it's all right, no, it's not all right, it's not all right, it's not all—  
_

"…Kamui? Oh…" Keiichi patted him on the shoulder awkwardly. The crowd booed at something on television. "God, I'm really sorry. That was really uncalled for. I can be pretty nasty sometimes. Really, I'm sorry. I—eh—here." Keiichi picked up Kamui's can of juice and tapped him on the cheek with its side. "Take a drink. I'm sorry, I keep saying things that seem to disturb you."

"No, it's not you, Keiichi." _Not you, not you at all. I'm so sorry. _Kamui sat up, snatched the can, and downed the last half of the liquid. "It's… you might say, nightmares."

"Sounds like pretty nasty nightmares."

"Keiichi!"

"Sorry, sorry."

"I mean, they are, but I'm being serious here. Like… horrifying."

"Want to talk about it?"

"No, I really don't." Kamui slammed the can onto the counter and fished in his pocket for money. "Sorry, Keiichi, it's not personal, I just really don't want to talk about it right now."

"…fine. What about the rest of that ramen?"

"_Could we just drop it_?"

Kamui slammed his share of money onto the counter and stomped off down the alley, shoving his hands into his pockets and already feeling like a rat. He heard Keiichi call after him and quickly scrabble some money onto the counter, telling the man to keep the change, and run after him. He sighed. Keiichi was one of the few people at whom he could not stay angry for very long, even given his volatile nature.

"Look, Kei—"

"I'm sorry…"

Keiichi halted alongside Kamui and fell into step. Kamui sighed and hugged himself protectively, feeling quite a bit more foolish than he thought he would have felt under the circumstances. He noticed that he was subconsciously curling toward Keiichi and turned his front – seemingly a vulnerable area needing protection – away from him more to prove to himself that he wasn't feeling anything than for any other reason.

"Don't worry about it."

"No, I really mean, I—I need to stop saying things that might offend—"

"It's not that—"

"I mean—I—ah—I really need to watch what I say, don't I?"

"Just drop it, Keiichi." Kamui stopped before they rounded the corner to the sidewalk and crossed his arms more tightly to appear more tough-defensive than timid-defensive. _I'm acting like a girl. God damn you, stop it. It's just Keiichi. He's harmless. He'll start asking questions if you keep this up.  
_

"All right, sounds like a good idea. We're going in circles. We need to find your friend anyway." Keiichi peered around the corner. "Oh my god, have a look at these guys." He started laughing. "They must think they're really cool or something."

Kamui sighed and stepped around the corner.

_…oh… my… GOD…  
_


	5. Self Induced Autism

_That Dragon of Heaven wanted to lose his left eye to be just like you. But deeper still in his heart lies his true desire, and you are the only one who can ever give him that…_

* * *

"Are you going to tell me anytime soon?"

"Huh?"

"Subaru's true desire that you so claim to know. I must admit that I am curious."

"You would like to know that, wouldn't you?" Fuuma placed his hand on the crepe parlor wall behind Seishirou's head and leaned over him. Seishirou had a cigarette half lifted to his lips. He stopped and watched Fuuma carefully through his sunglasses.

It was their second trip to the building in two days.

"…yes, I would."

"Your web of desires in that area grows more and more virulent." Fuuma pulled Seishirou's sunglasses off and pushed one clip over onto the lenses, delicately chewing on the end of the other clip. Seishirou mentally swallowed. _That's very nice, boy. You can move in the same manner as a stripper if you so wish. Very impressive. So you will do whatever others wish of you, you whore, down to the point of doing nonsense like this. Even if this is starting to bug me—_

"What are you thinking right now?"

Seishirou lit the cigarette and blew smoke into Fuuma's face. "I thought it was within the grasp of your powers to always know what I am thinking."

Fuuma smiled and straightened to escape the smoke. "I just wanted to hear you admit it. Effective defense. Is that why you smoke so much?"

"Don't overanalyze every contingency you encounter. It only makes you look like a charlatan. And I thought we discussed this." Seishirou offered his pack. "Do you care to try one now?"

"No more reserve about offering to minors?"

"I don't care what happens to you, so why should I pretend?"

Fuuma laughed and pushed Seishirou's glasses over his eyes with his forefinger. "So, do I look cool now?"

"You're beyond hope."

"You should talk. You seriously need some new outfits, old man."

"Flamer."

"You should know better than anybody." Fuuma held his arms out and spun around neatly, allowing his leather coat to bell out around his ankles. "There is nothing wrong with having good fashion sense. It is an area in which you could use some advisement."

"I am considered devastatingly attractive, thank you just the same. And I achieve this without spending any time on my appearance. How much gel is in your hair today, anyway?"

"Fuck you."

"As always, darling." Seishirou smirked and flicked ashes over the arm of the bench, legs crossed. _Darling, indeed. The dancing corpse boy. Eyes like a mirror. Damn, he still comprehends far too much for a corpse. He's like a computer. _He took a long drag. _I want my glasses back. You remind me why exactly I never remove them.  
_

"So that I can't do this?"

Fuuma was suddenly nose-to-nose with Seishirou once again, pulling Seishirou's glasses down the bridge of his own nose. Seishirou watched him calmly and blew a thin stream of smoke right into his eyes.

"I was waiting for that."

Fuuma snorted and pulled the glasses off. He threw them into Seishirou's lap. "Fine. You know I know every wish in your heart anyway. Does that make you uncomfortable?"

"Of course." Seishirou smiled. _You have no idea, you bastard. _"Which is the only reason you comply with me, to fulfill my wish. And in that vein, I have a question for you."

"Yes?"

"Why are you choosing to fulfill my wish even if it means the end of the war and loss for your Dragons of Earth?"

Fuuma paused for a moment. Seishirou watched his eyes carefully. _Wow, the bastard is genuinely thinking for once, not processing. That would be Fuuma coming through. The slight fluctuation of depth, the glassiness—beautiful, so beautiful, Fuuma-kun, stay like that—ah, damn it, it's gone—_

"…shhh." Fuuma held his finger in front of his lips and leaned close to Seishirou's ear. "That is for me to know and you to find out."

"And in effect, your suicide?" Seishirou twitched. Fuuma's breath was becoming hot and moist on his ear.

"As you so eloquently said once, Seishirou, I have no desires of my own."

_Which is why you're just a doll. _"And Subaru's wish?"

"The same." Fuuma licked Seishirou's ear. "For me to know and you to find out."

"…I see." Seishirou clutched the arm of the bench. Fuuma had started to suck on his neck; he was having to try damned hard to prevent any sort of automatic response. He glanced around over Fuuma's shoulder and noted with relief that nobody was watching.

"You're impatient tonight."

"Are you sure that is the correct accusation?"

"What, you are going to say you're doing this because this is what I want, aren't you?"

"You learn fast." Fuuma straightened and ruffled Seishirou's hair. "You're a smart boy."

"_Boy_. Huh. I'm twenty years your senior."

"All humans are children to me."

"That's cliché."

"As you know, it is not my fault." Fuuma smiled blankly and tilted his head. "I'm just a puppet."

His voice was dripping genuine scorn. Seishirou blinked and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, relaxing against the bench. _Too much damn emotion for a corpse to ever show. Perhaps I'm actually succeeding at this, for once._

"And if you are a puppet, tell me, why do you feel sadistic desire? Why do you get so much pleasure out of torment? That is a very human coil."

"Your coil." Fuuma maintained his faux-cheerful expression. _So fake it's painful. What a bore._ "Taking on what you wish to see in me, to see signs of my individuality. Because that would start to fulfill your wish."

"Of course. Don't we all?" Seishirou sighed, lifted one of Fuuma's hands, and ran gloved fingers over the pentacle glowing across the ridges. "Are you dying, Kamui?"

"Isn't that your wish?"

"And why do you choose me when so many others wish for the same?" Seishirou ran the seam arcing the tip of his gloved forefinger over the paths of the star. It was oddly pleasurable. "Are you showing, heaven forbid, preference? Sentiment? Attachment? Malice?"

_Or is it because this would also fulfill Kamui's wish?_

"Are you asking if I am falling for you?"

"In roundabout terms, yes."

"…fool." Fuuma pulled his hand away from Seishirou's cradle, retrieved the man's glasses from his lap, and placed them over Seishirou's eyes. "I cannot feel any attraction toward you until I die."

"I know that. And my question still remains: are you dying?"

"Hey, onii-san?"

Seishirou and Fuuma looked up. A young girl with static-strung braids and a rather ragged plush frog was tugging on Fuuma's jacket and allowing her weight to sag on his hip as a fulcrum so that she rotated on her toes. Fuuma's smile infused with calculated warmth. Seishirou blinked and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

_Programmed bastard—and who the hell is this?—wait._

"Making new friends, I see."

"I'm a very friendly person." Fuuma gave Seishirou the same blank grin reserved for the young girl, eyes closed, and nodded. The scorn was almost tangible. _You think you're _clever_, don't you_ "I met this young lady in Ebisu yesterday."

"Oh, did you, now?" Seishirou leaned forward and offered the girl his hand, sliding into the same form of cynicism so subtly saccharine it seemed genuine. _A paradox in itself, this form of expression. It's so accurate it's a parody._ "Hello, there."

"Sakurazuka-hakase?"

"Ah, that's right. Haruko-san is a patient of mine." Seishirou turned to Fuuma, still smiling warmly and allowing the scorn to settle out of his chest. A child's instinct would be unable to detect the venom. "Haruko is a lovely German shepherd of the Hamano family here. A rather euphonic name, if I do say so myself. I used to sing it to myself while I was working on Haruko. Ha-ma-no Haru-ko, Ha-ma-no Haru-ko," he sang lightly.

The girl giggled.

"Oh, by the way, this young lady is Hamano Kai." Seishirou nodded to Fuuma. "Kai-chan, this is my friend, Kamui."

"We've met." Fuuma knelt down to Kai's level. "How is—"

The frog's face was shoved into his nose.

"Kairu-san really missed you a lot, and he wants to know why you didn't come back to Ebisu after it was destroyed. And he wants to know how you knew it was going to be destroyed."

"He's a very bright frog." Fuuma pulled away from the plush face and patted the frog on the head. "I knew that from the moment I met him."

"He's very bright, like me." Kai walked around Fuuma and pulled herself onto the bench next to Seishirou, swinging her legs. Fuuma straightened and sat next to her.

"Well, this is a fortunate coincidence, seeing you here. Is your mother here to get something?"

"Just ice cream for my sister. She's in the hospital right now."

"Oh, really? That's a shame! What happened?"

_Like you give a damn._ Seishirou maintained his warm smile and extinguished his cigarette on the bench arm. _You really are an elegant piece of work; such smooth transition to fit the demands of your environment. Well orchestrated organic machine. Too bad you can't think for yourself._

"She was hurt in an earthquake, but she's going to be all right!" Kai clutched the bench on either side of her legs and swung the latter more enthusiastically. "She'll be let out soon, but since hospital food is yucky, we're here to get her a treat. She said that she wanted chocolate ice cream, but I like mint better. What kind of ice cream do you like?"

"I prefer vanilla," said Seishirou. "Something about the way that it melts pleases me."

"Melted ice cream? Yuck…"

"Really?" Fuuma grinned back over the girl's head. "I prefer pistachio myself. It is rather nice to get to taste nuts for a change."

_…that was… terrible…_

"EW. I hate nuts. They're nasty."

"It's something that you grow into. Like carrots and sashimi," said Seishirou.

"I like sashimi!"

"Oh, do you, now?"

"Yup!"

"Would you like to see a trick?"

"Sure!"

Seishirou removed his glasses, closed his eyes, pressed the crook of a gloved finger against the lids enclosing his right eye, and pushed a marble eyeball through the lids and into the crux of his hand. He opened his palm under Kai's nose. Kai shrieked.

"It's all right. It's a prosthetic eye. I lost my real eye years ago."

"…wow." Kai stared at the marble eye in fascinated horror. "What happened? Were you in a wreck?"

"I lost it defending somebody." He tossed the eye and caught it, still watching with one socket screwed shut. "See, it gets hard to do things like that and still catch things. When you have two eyes you get a sort of difference in perspective that overlaps to give an accurate picture. But one eye only allows you to see things from a skewed standpoint. I see my hand missing the ball until it actually touches my hand again."

"Oh."

"Do you know what that means?"

"…I think so…"

"Two perspectives make for a more accurate picture." Seishirou pushed the eyeball back into its socket, blinked several times to coat it with tears, and settled back against the bench. Kai was still watching him in awe.

"…you didn't really do that."

"Yes, I did."

"Nuh-uh. You can't do that."

"Oh, he can." Kai looked over her shoulder at Fuuma before straightening her alignment with the bench so as to be able to watch both men. Fuuma carefully lifted the frog out of her arms and sat it on his knee. "He can do many things. He's an illusion master."

"An illusion master?"

"It's sort of like a magician." The frog flopped forehead-onto-knees; Fuuma straightened it back out into an upright slouch. "He can make things seem real that aren't really there."

"Ooh. What kind of things?"

"Everything." Seishirou leaned close to Kai and lowered his voice to a secretive level. "From doves to emotions. But do you know what gives illusions their power?"

"…you?"

"Not me alone, but the hearts of people in general. Let me tell you a secret. Do you want to know a secret?"

"…sure."

"If you control the hearts of people, you control everything. Them. Isn't is easier to control somebody who wants to help you than to control somebody who fights you?"

"Well… yeah. Duh."

"You're a smart girl. But sometimes it's the simplest things that the smartest people miss. They're too wrapped up in the details to see the big picture right in front of them. It's self-induced autism. That means, basically, that sometimes all you have to do to see a solution is step back and allow your intuition to flow. Intuition is only the process of making loose associations between the whole picture of events to determine patterns. It isn't as mystic as people seem to think it is."

"...I thought only women had an Intuition."

"People can be wrong, you do know."

"But… wait." Kai thought for a moment and swung her leg thoughtfully. "…can you make anything real?"

"Well, that depends on your definition of 'real'."

"Don't get wrapped up in the details," said Fuuma.

_God damn you. _"He's right, you know. See? Even I do it a lot."

"You must be smart!"

"Not very." Seishirou laughed warmly and thought of creative ways to string Fuuma from a ceiling fan. "People do that to avoid a question, if they don't really understand it. They go off on a detailed tangent. It takes much more intelligence to look at a whole picture of details and how they relate than just one detail."

"As our friend so graciously demonstrates."

_THANK you, asshole. _"But to answer your question… everybody can. It's just a question of what you want to create."

"Or what you're brave enough to create." Fuuma gave the frog one last pat and set it on the girl's lap. "Illusions can only hurt you if you once believed they were real and they disappoint you, the same way that lies can, but you can get over the illusions and the lies themselves. It's more the fact that somebody can only create illusions that hurts people. That somebody would obscure the truth."

"…huh?"

"But real things—real things can hurt you in so many other ways. They're more subtle, but they hurt the longest. Beneath the extravagance and flashing lights of illusions they seem to pale, but in truth they are the survivors. They are the silent-but-deadly things illusions try to hide. The things people try to hide with silence and illusions."

"…okay."

_So we're back to catering to me, I see. _Seishirou replaced his glasses over his eyes and smirked to himself. _Very true, half-sided and incomplete, but true nonetheless. Only seeing through me since I want somebody as reliant upon a fabricated persona as I am not to serve a threat and yet provide companionship without the dangers of having to place my damned human heart on the line. Somebody who also lives off of the delusions he places upon himself. Without that downfall. Somebody programmed not to acknowledge his own emotions. Somebody so aware of the potency of truth in harbingering his downfall that he refuses to acknowledge it lest he ceases to exist. Somebody that hollow. But your wit is about as long as your dick tonight; I do believe that your immaculate shell is cracking. You were far more mature and utterly brilliant yesterday. This petty nonsense you spew right now is adolescent trash._

"Perfect." Fuuma grabbed Seishirou's hands; Kai leaned back on her arms to make space. "Let's get married."

"…what?"

"We can live within your security blanket of illusions forever, and you will never have to gamble anything real. You can believe what your heart most desires is possible and never have to face reality. And I must say that the other—benefits—" Fuuma leaned close to Seishirou's ear, "—will be rather worthwhile—"

"The perfect drug?"

"As you know best."

"Drugs are bad," said Kai. "Um… hey…" She wove up under Fuuma's arms and glanced from him to Seishirou. "Are you guys… um… you know…"

"Everybody is, really. You just choose whether or not to acknowledge it." Fuuma straightened, glossing his expression perfectly once again, and ruffled Kai's braids. "So no, I'm not gay. I'm bisexual. So is Seishirou."

"…oh… um… my uncle is gay."

"Good for him." Seishirou pulled another cigarette out of his pack and lit it. /_I'm turning into a chain smoker. Delightful./_ "Don't listen to him. Most people in the world actually prefer either one or the other. Believe it or not, despite what manga may lead you to believe, there are actually people out there who don't like the same sex at all. Most people are that way, but more aren't than you would think. It's all chemical and biological."

"…boys are gay."

"Yes, they are. And they will continue to be so." Seishirou tapped ashes over his finger and smiled. "People in general are 'gay'; women can be just as bad in different ways."

"But boys are just gay."

"Yaoi fangirl?" asked Fuuma.

"_Silencio_, genius. Your interpretation circuits are shot." /_In so many ways. One more night ought to push him over the edge._/ He blew smoke in a thin stream over Kai's head. "Anyway, yeah. Just don't turn into another one of those trendy students who tries to delude herself into alternate sexuality to seem deep or open-minded. You cannot control how you feel."

"Same way that smoking is bad for you?" said Fuuma.

"The very same way, yes."

"FUUMA?"

_...perfect…_

The triad looked toward the back of the building. Kai leaned forward on her arms and swung her legs more heavily to maintain balance. The frog slipped off of her lap; she scooped it back into her arms before it could hit ground. Seishirou kept his hand slid over the back of the bench and watched over his shoulder. He hissed smoke through his teeth and watched the two newcoming figures – one lithe and dark, the other seemingly more accustomed to belong in sunlight – through the pearl-gray smoke undulations, the flow akin to pouring oil into water.

Fuuma watched them levelly, computing his next façade and adjusting so as to best serve to the tastes of all parties present, seemingly testing the delicate and dynamic mental lattice webbing the air, smiled, and bit the side of his finger thoughtfully. Seishirou resisted the urge to roll his eyes, pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, and stood with Fuuma. Kai stood and hid behind Fuuma's leather coat skirts.

"Shirou Kamui, isn't it? And this must be your friend, Segawa Keiichi."

"You're Sakurazuka Seishirou, aren't you?"

"Yes."

_Great, he's pissed._ Seishirou loosened his hips and drifted his hand toward his pocket, actions well concealed in the drape of his coat. Gloved fingers crooked around the deck of cards in his pocket, ran along the edges briefly, and came to rest with palm against the flat of the card deck. The ever-present mask ghosted from the slightest flicker of irritation to cynical good humor. _He's too wired to notice anything; he's leaving himself wide open. He's telegraphing all of the moves that he wishes to take, everything he wishes to do to me. He wants to run to Fuuma and beg. Such a simplistic, emotional wraith. So, this is the form that casts the puppet's shadow—_

"What the hell have you done to Fuuma?"

"I beg your pardon, young man?"

"YOU HEARD ME! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO FUUMA?" Kamui made a lunging step in attempt at intimidation, not intending to charge but wishing to telegraph that he was in a right state to do nothing but charge and rip Seishirou apart with his bare hands. Keiichi made a half-hearted movement as though about to catch him, but also sensed the falsehood of the action; he stepped back and prepared to catch Kamui when the time really did come for him to make a move. He looked dead awkward and confused, divided between hauling Kamui down the street and back home and allowing him to get the steam out of his system.

"IF YOU EVEN _TOUCHED_ HIM, YOU BASTARD, I SWEAR TO GOD—"

"You'll do what?"

"I'LL—" Keiichi reached for his shoulder; Kamui whacked his hand away and stepped forward again. "I'LL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF, I SWEAR TO GOD. I… I saw what you did to Subaru. I don't care if he loves you; that's his business, whatever, but I swear to god if you hurt another one of my friends… if you EVEN TOUCH FUUMA I SWEAR, BY GOD_—_"

"And is 'Fuuma' really any different than I am?"

"He—THAT'S NOT FUUMA." Kamui started coughing violently. Keiichi caught him under the arms and allowed him to curl slightly against his chest. Kamui struggled and stood upright in the embrace. He shook his hair out of his eyes. "That's a monster! But it's Fuuma's body, and Fuuma is in there; I know he is. And if you touch that body… if you harm that body, if you in any hurt the Fuuma that is in there… I'll kill you. With my own hands, I will kill you, for Subaru's sake and my own. For Fuuma's sake as well. You have no right to touch that body."

"And I assume that you think you know what exactly is happening, do you?"

"I… I've met you, remember?" Kamui struggled fitfully against Keiichi's grip and numbly listened to whispered words of calm. He thought for a moment and took several deep breaths, allowing his weight to further sag against his friend. _He's fighting to keep control of his power lest he shocks his escort. He assumes too much of us to do the same in return._ "We met; you attacked me, and Fuuma, and Kotori way back… Fuuma saved us, somehow, he had this power…" He looked at Fuuma and noticed the girl standing behind him. "Who is that girl?"

"This is my new friend." Fuuma crouched and lifted Kai onto his shoulder, then turned around and smiled disarmingly. Kai set the frog on her head and watched with rapt interest. "It would be a shame to start anything in front of her, now wouldn't it?"

"Hiding behind a little girl? That's sick, man."

Fuuma looked at Keiichi and nodded in good humor. "Life is rather sick and weird. I find it no more honorable to hide behind a friend who feels obligation to hold you back."

"…you know nothing." Kamui dropped his gaze for a moment, taking deep, ragged breaths; Keiichi whispered a desperate request to mind his health and allow the issue to lapse. He closed his eyes briefly and looked back up at Fuuma. "Look, just… let the girl go; stop it. We'll leave for now."

"Why the sudden calm? What do you fear discovering?"

Kamui looked down and slackened his shoulders; Keiichi readjusted his weight. Fuuma shrugged and scratched Kai atop the head. "I think you know more than you already wish to know."

"But who…?"

"Who has that power?"

Seishirou watched Kamui with mild distain and turned his attention to Fuuma, who was maintaining an immaculate, loving, sadistic farce. He sighed, smiled to himself, and extinguished his cigarette against the wall. Kamui looked up at him. Seishirou gave him a small wave and nodded.

"Hi there."

"…hi…"

_Something incredibly sadistic. Something incredibly disgusting. Oh, the sacrifices you make for this sort of manipulation, Seishirou._ He walked to Fuuma and carefully lifted Kai to the ground. _Let's keep torturing myself. Let's keep testing myself. Let's see how long until I crack—_

He ran the tips of gloved fingers along the muscle sloping up the side of Fuuma's neck and glanced over his shoulder. Kamui's expression was appropriately horrified, so very open and unhindered, the first stages of shock not so much from being blindsided but from an expectation actually being fulfilled so suddenly—

_—__until you lose, until you give in to yourself._ _Until you actually start to enjoy—_

Keiichi's shoulders slackened in shock—

_—__until the taste gets addictive and reminds you of how it feels to be alone—_

Kisses were always this sadistic.

_—__until you want it to be otherwise._ _You broken, pathetic man._

_—__You're only human, after all.__—_

Seishirou bit Fuuma's tongue harshly. Fuuma laughed into his throat.

_—__You lose sight of the small things. You think you're the acceptation to the rule.__—_

_—__you can't understand._

_—__You're right. Because I have no will of my own to conquer.__—_

_—__it can be a curse._

_—__And aren't you the weak one for running?__—_

_—__never._ _I'm running headlong into the fire and coming out unscathed. Consider this test a side-experiment—_

_—__Do you really get that bored? Or do you just need something to fulfill yourself?__—_

_—__you know there is far more to this than that._

_—__You're right.__—_

Seishirou released Fuuma and whirled into a fighting stance, whipping a fan-array of scrolls out of his pocket and throwing them past Kamui like darts; he blocked Kamui's reckless punch and threw him shoulder-first into the wall with a sickening crunch and a scream. The scrolls melted into ragged, carrion crows and raised a primordial circle around Keiichi. Kamui gave a half-breathed cry of pain and pulled himself upright against the brick wall.

"Do you really want to start this here?"

Kai had long since dashed to the bench and watched her new friends kiss with a mixture of disgust and fascination, holding the frog close to her chest, and now huddled against the wall with the effigy clutched close to her collar. She slid down the wall and watched the ensuing events behind her knees. The door to the crepe parlor burst open; her parents, along with the profusion of people who had been waiting for the late night's last confections, and the employees, were crowding around the door. Seishirou watched her and the crowd with satisfaction. Keiichi was ducking and shielding his face with his forearms, watching the carrion warily and circling, searching the ground around him for any potential weapon. /_Perfect. Hotheaded though he is, Kamui won't start anything here without a spirit shield. This will be over in a moment. I want to go home./_

"…all right." Kamui hauled himself up with his fingernails against the harsh brick and leaned flat against the wall, hands splayed and shoulders hunched. He gave a small cry as a broken shoulder blade settled. "…not here, not now. Just… by god… I swear to god…"

"You've spoken your piece."

"I will hunt you down. I will kill you. I will not sink to your level and give you everything that you deserve… but…" He gasped and cried as the bones grated together. "…I guess, for Subaru-san's sake, I will kill you silently. Only for his sake."

"You're a good man." Seishirou gave Kamui another small wave and a nodded bow. The carrion hovering around Keiichi's protective form snapped into fluttering black paper, drifting to the ground as so many discarded, flapping wings. Keiichi straightened and looked around. "It is far more than I deserve." He pointed to the backs of his hand and smiled. "Sleep well, Kamui-kun. Don't go blind."

Kamui glared at Seishirou and collapsed against the concrete, mustering nothing but pure venom and hatred. Seishirou could sense the calm he was trying to send to his own heart, a sort of deadened response he had learned since the turning point in his destiny. _It really is quite sad, the way he has turned out. The sort of soul whose only repose is a self-induced sedative fabricated to cool the heart in times of trial.  
_

_—__We are the hollow men, aren't we?__—_

_Something you would be familiar with._

_—__It is less painful to freeze the heart then allow it to feel. Kamui is in a state of limbo. Healing means leaving Fuuma abandoned.__—_

_Amazingly trite. Remind me to fix you when I get the chance. You are starting to bore me._

_—__You might as well finish the job. This is what you wanted.__—_

_But the process is rather boring. I am going home. Don't follow me._

_—__Even if deep down you want me to acknowledge your most vulnerable moments.__—_

_Silence. Good bye._

* * *

"Wheeew… that was close…"

Sorata sighed and straightened from a fighting stance he had assumed upon reaching the roof of the crepe parlor. The Sakurazukamori's birds had melted into something relatively benign, and the bastards were leaving in separate directions. At least Kamui was not going to have to fight them this evening; he had arrived too late to be able to aid him. Keiichi was already helping him down the street and warding off questioning locals.

_Keiichi has it covered. Sorry, Kamui. _He jumped to the next building. _I have to find Yuzuriha-chan._

* * *


	6. Proper Study of Mankind

_In lazy apathy let Stoics boast  
Their virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a frost;  
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;  
But strength of mind is Exercise, not Rest:  
The rising tempest puts in act the soul,  
Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole.  
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,  
Reason the card, but Passion is the gale;  
Nor God alone in the still calm we find,  
He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind._ (1)

* * *

"Never give up, huh…"

Seishirou blew a thin stream of undulating smoke into the midnight-blue shadows of his apartment and sighed, leaning back in his chair and allowing the ice-white moonlight from the open window to play across his face. His heavy coat was carelessly draped over the back of another chair; his suit jacket was thrown onto the kitchen table with the dark snake of his necktie. He had undone the top button of his shirt and thrown his shoes into the corner. His cigarette pack was still in his breast pocket, crushed with only three rolls remaining in the cellophane-edged package.

_Beautiful, isn't it?_ He smiled, cradled his cigarette between his lips, and examined the channels of blood running down his still-gloved hands, collecting at the hem of the cloth and running under his bare wrist and down his arm. He dangled his hand and watched the blood reverse direction and run toward his fingertips. There was not enough free-flowing blood left to have the dramatic effect he wished; it merely further dried on his gloves. He sighed and pulled his gloves off, still smiling to himself and maintaining a habitual look of tranquility. _Still masking and deluding myself, even in solitude._ _That I could create illusions that often even shroud my own heart is a tribute to my talent, I guess. To delude myself this far… for this long, and to consider the end of the illusions my defeat… that in truth I cannot live…to acknowledge what I already know, ah! Why is that so difficult to do? My psychology deludes even me, and yet, beyond every analysis, I cannot change the very most basic way that I operate. So, in the final analysis, if I cannot change even myself, where do the boundaries of my power lie?_ He took a drag of his cigarette. _In my heart, in my own well of downfall._ '_If thy hand profane thee, cut it off, and maimed enter the kingdom of heaven.' No heaven awaits me—hah, to never taste that, damning myself to never do such a thing with my own reserve and self-deprivation—to cut off heaven to enter heaven; to cut off heaven to enter my "victory"—therein is my paradox. Both cannot be attained. There is no heaven without the shame and defeat; there is no victory without hell. Why_

_'Why, why', I keep asking myself, and never a clear answer. The answers are not nearly as glamorous as I would wish them to be. Ah, such mundane things as rigid pride, maintenance of image, and programming at upbringing--in such simple truths lays human nature. Nothing so glorious as people maintain. I do not deny a fathomless well of entangled and raving psychotic tendencies to my name; no. That is most definitely there./_ He laughed silently to himself. /_I can never be what I idealize of myself, that 'god'; I can only understand myself through analysis of what I really am, what I really do. No idealized imagination. I am just a human._ _Does that make me even deeper? Bloody hell, this is the sort of nonsense I thought about in high school. I guess in some ways I am severely emotionally immature, considering my own self-induced stunting of the development of those faculties._

He stretched his legs out in front of him and relaxed further into the chair. This was Seishirou out-of-view: disheveled, exhausted, tortured, with a rigidly masked face attempting to relax for its own physical sake, and lonely.

Lonely.

_It's your own damn fault; you wouldn't have it any other way. _He sighed. _How long can you keep deluding yourself of your own strength; how many more tests? How many more days following him around and never responding, watching him sleep and getting ever closer just to see when you will crack. Just to feel yourself hurt. Just to allow yourself to feel in the only way you will allow yourself to feel without guilt. The only 'honorable' feeling, you warped bastard. How much longer allowing this to be the only thing that validates a hollow existence, your pain, your test, all hollow in the end? Well—in this game of life, one might as well play to win. _

Subaru-kun.

_'Win' by your own rules. We all think of our own rules for life; your set is disgustingly common. Strength by Spartan philosophy. How trite. How boring. How hollow. Living your life drinking of the obsession and pain of one kind boy, in the luxurious position of being allowed to be aloof and still hold his captivation and heart, ah, to get to feel the same in return and blame him for all the weakness. And nobody has to know. Nobody has to know. This is your dirty little secret, Seishirou. An all-consuming love. The one thing that defines you: how you deprive yourself, how strong it grows, all of the pain. The pain that you allow yourself to feel._

_I'm alive. Subaru-kun, you are my reason to live. You are everything. You harbinger everything that I feel. Damn you._

_I hate you._

_And I can't come to terms with myself on this issue, no._ He sat up slightly and dragged on his cigarette. _To delude myself by day, every conscious moment, that I feel nothing, that you are nothing, and to have it work, but now—the lonely night, the hollow night, when I am the most alive—definitely not the only time that I acknowledge my humanity, but the only time I allow it to settle in my chest and reside in the security of my own home. Until I kill off every other stimuli that makes me feel and sees through my façade, I will have something to stave off the boredom, but you… you are the most basic and granted aspect of my being.  
_

The ragged, bloodstained frog stared at the back of his head from his kitchen counter, beetle-black eyes reflecting a pin-mark of the moon.

_You are being taken from me. And that must be stopped, Subaru-kun. Until you bind yourself not only to me with undivided love, but also with undivided hate. Until I am everything to you as you are everything to me. Until this is equal. Until you no longer threaten me. A rare moment in which I will even admit that to myself. Ah, 'too much weakness for the stoic's pride', indeed, this middle state of man. Curse it. Petty jealousy, if you must, drive me. I don't care anymore._ He dragged on his cigarette. _Remind me that I am alive. Let me play the game a little bit longer. Why not? As soon as I die, nothing will remain. I have nothing to loose. I am a broken man; this is all that I have in my life. Even in admitting that, let me rest. Let me follow my gut for once._

_I have everything to loose. God damn you, Kamui._

_—__Do I really threaten you so much?__—_

_It gets lonely at night; allow me to delude myself. You know every thought in my heart anyway. Quell the loneliness with the mere presence of flesh and remind me of the carnal pleasures. Hormones are merely physical; I feel no shame for them. So what if I enjoy my work? Is it not a form of strength to make the best of a situation._

_—__Whore.__—_

_Touching is only stigmatic so long as one attaches great meaning to it; you only touch my body. It is in no way violation. Everything is hollow by nature and with meaning only as we attach it._

_—__Whore.__—_

_Shut up. Get the hell out of my head._

_—__And is it really no more defeat to admit these simple truths to me, now, in your head where it matters the most – to the self – than it is to fall in the 'outside world' with your actions?__—_

_You cannot help what you feel. You can only control your actions._

_—__Shocking._ _I thought you were under the delusion that you could absolutely control your every emotion.__—_

_Grow up. No, I can't._

_—__If that is the case, why do you even struggle?__—_

_That is how I have chosen to live my life._

_—__With those hang-ups that govern you being just as pathetic and weak, just as much bound to social expectations—in essence, what defines you as 'cold' by popular society—as anybody else's philosophy? If not more so, since you are so reliant upon illusionary image? You are risking nothing real. You throw illusionary shields out there to break for you. You coward.__—_

_Silence. Where the hell are you?_

_—__Wishing to submit to mere carnal lust once again?__—_

_You know very well the only reason that I touch you._

_—__That is what you keep telling yourself, and I do not deny that was your initial motive and still remains cardinal in your mind, but you also love it.__—_

_I hate it because of this sort of nonsense._

_—__The 'nonsense' meaning the fact that I know that you love it so very much? That, in fact, you are not repelled by any human touching you and you so love it when you have 'no excuse' for the action and can indulge yourself? That you are glad that you have 'no choice' so that you don't have to just watch and die of thirst? Watch and deprive yourself? Watch behind that mask and pretend to be strong? Watch others place themselves on the line because you have manipulated them into the lower hand and be able to watch from a safe distance and never have to reciprocate while you in fact feel the very same way? Isn't that your drug?__—_

_Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink._

_—__Ah… _that _water. The wine you cannot taste even if you drown yourself in fresh water?__—_

_You are only water to the wine I wish to taste._

_—__Coward.__—_

_You are just mindless self-indulgence._

_—__Slut.__—_

_I have already fallen; why can I not just languish in the spoils._

_—__Why not, indeed?__—_

_Wouldn't it be nice to be happy for a change?_

_—__Could you truly lose all of your pathetic facades and rules for life and just live with the risk of losing the only thing that sustains you?__—_

_My pride? My mask? The pride in my self-deprivation and my self-perpetuated illusions of null feeling? I would cease to be Sakurazuka Seishirou, wouldn't I? And I cannot go back from the path that governs from the root of my life. There would be no forgiveness for me._

_—__I guess you are just that pathetic. That is your choice.__—_

_I hate you._

_—__You know I am right.__—_

_And as always, I cannot handle the truth. Allow me to resurrect my illusions for a moment. I need my security blanket._

_—__Your sense of humor, at least, remains intact.__—_

_If you can't laugh at yourself, you have very little._

_—__You already have no sense of true self. You doll.__—_

_At least I died of my own hand. Of my own free will._

"You did." Fuuma slipped behind Seishirou's chair and crouched with his arms draped around the latter's shoulders, spreading his coat tails on the floor behind him. The effect in the moonlight was ethereal. "And you wanted me to see so very pointedly into your soul and argue with accuracy because it is comforting for there to be one, at least one, person in this world who understands you." He snorted and buried his face in the crook of Seishirou's neck. "Better even if he is your lover."

The shadow-flicker of distaste across Seishirou's features disappeared with renewed energy as it had come, fluttering into the night. He smiled and slid behind the mental walls that he wished to maintain though he knew that Fuuma had full access to whatever he wished to see. It at least made him feel himself, reminded him of his identity and kept him self-possessed. It made him feel as though he was still detached and fighting. _If I can delude myself, perhaps it will come true, someday. Self-fulfilled prophesies are rather powerful. A form of illusion. My forte._

"Truly such a luxury for me to be able to do this and invade your desolate, begging soul and yet allow you to delude yourself into security and detachment. If I were you, I would lock me in a closet and never allow me to leave."

"You wish to think such a thing."

"I thought we had moved beyond this." Fuuma bit Seishirou on the nape of the neck—hard. Seishirou closed his eyes and silently exhaled. A wave of molten fire flowed through his gut and settled at its core. "Bad, bad. We need not wade through this useless dominance struggle once again. You know that I know exactly what you are thinking, so there is no need to even try. Do not prove your own stupidity by clinging to such petty games to preserve your _image_ and assure others of your mindless rebellion despite your awareness of the futility and arbitrary state of such actions."

"And I do know that deep down you know that I care nothing for you."

"Not for _me_, anyway." Fuuma tilted Seishirou's face toward his and smiled. "That just means that given the 'must be done' excuse to do this, you would take anybody and weave illusions with the carnal act that would make you feel as though you were not alone. Slut. You are alone, and you are the one who made that decision."

"It is the side of human nature I must stave." He smiled back, one living, smoldering eye examining Fuuma's garnet-red pair and searching for laces of malice and genuine depth. The fluctuations were becoming just audible enough to trace a change; progress was being made. He closed his eyes in satisfaction and ruffled Fuuma's hair. "Since this must be done, I see no sin in enjoying my work to the fullest. That is, per say, a form of strength, to make the best of things."

"I am well aware of that." Fuuma caught the hand mussing his hair and lapped the dried blood off of the inside of its wrist, pausing to first allow his saliva to quench the tracks into liquid. "I am just waiting for you to absorb your own inherent knowledge to heart, for once."

* * *

_Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,  
The proper study of mankind is Man. (2)_

* * *

"…'placed on this isthmus in a middle state; a being rudely…' I do hope it was 'rudely'… wise and 'rudely'… great…"

"What?"

"…'with too much knowledge for the skeptic's side, with too much weakness for the stoic's pride…' sorry; that part might be reversed…"

"Alexander Pope, isn't it?"

"Utterly amazing writer. "_Essay on Man"_ has to be one of the most well-written pieces to ever grace paper. I read the entire thing in high school. Truly, it must be a timeless piece to captivate both my foolish adolescent self and my old, washed-up self. That is the hallmark of wisdom."

"Isn't it?" Satsuki craned her neck to watch the spread of video feed across the flat screen supported by a thick mass of BEAST's video wires and took a long sip of tea. Yuuto was standing over her shoulder expectantly with the teapot cradled in his hands.

"You look almost out. Would you care for some more?"

"Hm? Oh, yes."

_Brownie points, score four tonight._ "Good!" Yuuto smiled and leaned over her shoulder none too professionally to pour and watched the video feed with vestiges of amusement fueled more by the situation than the transmission. "He's been sitting there for a long time. Do you think he's thinking about something?"

"Hush. You know he is. He's an intelligent man."

"Really? He strikes me as a capital idiot."

"Silence. I am trying to see what he will do."

Yuuto felt Satsuki take a silent, calming breath as he brushed against her shoulder while straightening and fought to prevent a huge, stupid grin from spreading across his face. He coughed and forced his smile to relax. _Hook, line, and sinker; she's mine. Mine mine mine mine mine—_

"He's not been acting like himself at all lately," said Satsuki.

"Really?" Yuuto resumed his seat across the table and took a sip of his own cup. _Mandarin orange; this is her favorite flavor. Subtle and simply-sweet charm. Yuuto, you smooth criminal. She looks so relaxed._ "And how exactly to you expect him to act? Never drop the mask?"

"I was expecting him to delude himself to the point of identity loss."

"Nah, he's probably grown out of that. I mean, not acknowledging what he's doing, not the identity loss. Can't grow out of that, sadly. But as you said, he is an intelligent man. He's probably come to terms by now. Probably knows the inevitability of his own humanity. Or he's just stone blind, one or the other."

"I know that. I still find it curious that he so easily agreed to such intimate physical contact. I thought he had a neurotic self-deprivating aversion to that."

"You can just say 'sex', you know."

"Thank you, Yuuto."

"Well… 'the proper study of mankind is man'." Yuuto leaned over the table to spin the confection dolly and search for something to his taste. "I'm going to get fat on all of this stuff. Hm. But, yes, the only way to understand humans is to see what they do in everyday life. You can't rely on legends, or fiction, or movies, anime, manga, your own original characters, whatever—those are scripted, idealized 'people'—'gods'. The proper study of mankind, Satsuki, is man. What you see every day. And if you consider that the miracle of imagination is 'god'… makes perfect sense, does it not?"

"And you think that some imagination cannot emulate that observation?"

"Of course it can. Most definitely. And I'm not trying to degrade escapism; no, not at all. I think the imagination's people are beautiful people. They represent a side of us in themselves. But, what is your basis for comparison? What people say about themselves, or what people actually do? Hm… people can try to make themselves seem more deep or cool through their words and agendas, what they claim to do and feel, but when it gets right down to it, human nature is much more bland and predictable. What do you think is a reason that fiction is such an escape?" He placed a pastry on his plate and unfolded a napkin over his lap. "And yet humans have the endless capacity to surprise: a middle state, indeed. Humans are the ultimate riddle and paradox."

"Shh."

The sprawled figure on the screen--a man wearing a glowing white shirt amid a midnight wash of deep blue and shadow, pale skin moonlit and cigarette glowing ember orange and clouding the moonbeams with milk—shifted as a second, white-pale figure cloaked in black slipped in through the back window. Satsuki blinked.

"Is he catatonic? How does he not notice Kamui?"

"He's probably just having a bad night, same as anybody else can have."

"I think his training has taught him never to let down his guard regardless of mood swings, Yuuto."

"Doesn't look like the sort of chap to listen to protocol. Besides, Kamui's no threat to him, so we have no way of knowing whether or not he is aware of him and just doesn't care. Give him some credit. He might be a fool, but he's not a blind moron—a-ah…"

_So, Kamui did find himself a boyfriend._ Yuuto sat back and smirked as Fuuma crouched languidly behind Seishirou's chair and draped his arms over his shoulders from behind. _A very touching embrace. Don't give me any ideas—so, Kamui, what exactly is your agenda with this little farce? Whose wish are you fulfilling?_

"Do you think this is what Sakurazuka wishes?"

"Can't be that simple. But, who knows, as I said, human nature…"

"He has a rather archival past involving a member of the Dragons of Heaven."

"Probably involves that. Things have a tendency to get needlessly complicated around here. It would be much easier for our Kamui to just set them up on a nice honeymoon and help them make amends, but _no_. Has to be done the hard way to save pride and all of that nonsense."

"Sakurazuka has been researching tantra as of late."

"He'll make his boyfriend very happy."

"The magical side of tantra. The manipulative side." Satsuki gave Yuuto a flat look. "You… do know what that is, don't you?"

"Karma Sutra." Yuuto gave a devilish grin. _And you have no need to know how much I know and how little I have used it. I really am a hopeless pervert. _"At least he wants to get it right."

"Not exactly." Satsuki quickly looked away and pushed her glasses up her nose. She looked almost angry. _Just relax, darling. If you want it, only ask, I will think no less of you, as you fear. It is not as though I am going to try anything without your permission. _"He's researching the black and white magic involved in the act. Some of the spells have amazingly strong manipulative properties. Some spells can even lower the partner's resistance to the other in terms of battle. Some spells can transfer magical powers. Some spells can allow access to the mind, especially during the most vulnerable point of orgasm. The latter point is the one he has been researching the most ruthlessly according to his internet logs. He seems to be very focused on the theory that orgasm frees the mind from the body, to an extent."

"…ah… ah!" Yuuto set his cup on his saucer. "And with all of those other advantages—the weakening, the worming, the gaining of power—ah…" He sat back in his chair and cradled his chin in the crook of his finger. _Perfect. Perfect sense. _"This is getting rather interesting."

"Kanoe is not going to like this."

"No, not at all, considering that it is a given that our already unstable Kamui is going to go stark raving mad." Yuuto smiled and poured more tea. _The fun never ends around here. I'm glad I joined up. Something is always going on. _"And if the orgasms were Sakurazuka's only goal, he could very kindly ask Kamui to masturbate until he went blind. He's a smart boy; he would see that as an option. There has to be the other angles of energy transfer or something involved. Ooh. I love puzzles."

"…right." Satsuki sighed as Fuuma bit the back of Seishirou's neck; Yuuto watched her reaction carefully. A wave of arousal washed through his stomach at the look on her face; her lips were slightly parted, eyes glassed. _She wants somebody to touch her like that, admit it though she won't. BEAST can't do that to her. BEAST can't love her like that. BEAST can't hold her the entire night and kiss her until she melts—_

"Are you lonely?"

Satsuki blinked at the sudden question and calmly looked at Yuuto, readjusting her glasses. Yuuto was giving an impish smile and struggling to cool his hormones back into submission. The last thing he needed was to look like a horny dog; it was the sort of thing to completely turn her away. _Look intelligent or something. Come on, you can think of something._

"…what sort of a question is that?"

"A simple one. Are you lonely?"

"…of course not." She coughed and turned back to the screen. "I—"

Fuuma looked directly into the dormant television in Seishirou's living room over his partner's shoulder, winked, and crept his fingers repetitively in a wave; he had found the second port Satsuki had indirectly wired for video feed. She narrowed her eyes delicately and smiled.

"Clever boy."

The television exploded; the screen was shot with static. Yuuto shrugged and added another lemon to his tea.

"Clever because Sakurazuka wishes for a clever partner. Ah, that didn't end so well. No man-smut for you this evening." Satsuki furrowed her eyes in momentary confusion before glaring at Yuuto. Yuuto smiled and nodded. "Don't tell me that it's just research; it's smut. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Sexuality is a very beautiful and natural—"

"I don't need this talk right now. I know very well."

"Ah, good. Let's move on." Yuuto sat back and crossed his ankle over his leg, settling his weight and resting the saucer on his thigh. "What else is on TV?"

"Well, given that both of my hardware setups in Sakurazuka's apartment have been shot, I need to find appropriate hardware to view… means we can only browse established video cameras."

"You can't just miraculously rearrange the protocols and physical composition of any electronic device to make it transmit video feed? I thought you were the Cyber Girl, Satsuki."

"It's more complicated than that." Satsuki looked toward the static-strung snowstorm on screen and mentally ordered the BEAST to browse video cameras for feed of interest. The BEAST did not comply with its usual speed. Satsuki furrowed her eyebrows and seemed to hold a mental contest of wills with it. Yuuto watched her in mild confusion, blinked, and looked up at the mammoth, cybernetic hull of the BEAST mainframe.

_I'm going insane. It's glaring at me._

He thought for a moment, then grinned, settling back and taking a delicate sip of his tea. So, the BEAST _did_ feel, after all, and it had _reason_ to feel jealous. Satsuki _was_ liking him, after all. _Oh lucky day. Oh, lucky day, so long as I live to tell the tale. I need to rid my room of electronics from here on out, or at least never sleep in a room with electrical wiring. I'll even take Satsuki candle shopping so I can see in there. She'll probably have to be by my side whenever I so much as use a cell phone, but… Oh, it's worth it. Joy. Joy beyond joy. JOY._

"Is something funny, Yuuto?"

"Nothing." Yuuto parted his grin enough to sip his tea and calmed his expression. _Oh, lucky day. Thank you, BEAST._ "Ah." He set the cup on its saucer and looked at the video monitor. "Your friend is on TV."

* * *

(1) Alexander Pope, "Essay on Man", Epistle II . III  
(2) Alexander Pope, "Essay on Man", Epistle II . I 


	7. Curse

"You could have been KILLED! What were you thinking?"

"The bastard was fucking around with Fuuma; what the hell was I supposed to do?"

"You could have waited! And that's not Fuuma-san anymore; he's a monster!" Yuzuriha cuddled her Inuki-puppy closer to her chest, the latter of whom was whimpering at his mistress's obvious irritation and pawing at her collar, and took a deep breath. She was hovering over Kamui's CLAMP Campus hospital bed, utterly oblivious to the active video camera mounted in the corner and Keiichi watching in confusion from a chair, and both scared and relived beyond compare. Sorata had told her of what he had seen happen to Kamui after finding her cuddling her newborn in the aftermath of a battle with Fuuma. Fuuma must have gone after her as soon as he left Kamui's party; he had found her walking toward the CLAMP Campus. Kusanagi had left her earlier that afternoon with a new and beloved set of clothing, a phone number, and renewed hope.

The day had gone relatively well thus far—a gift from Kusanagi-san, and after a spat with Fuuma, Inuki reborn to her—and now this.

_He's so stupid! Why does he always have to let his temper get the best of him?_

"He is Fuuma! Fuuma is still alive in there—I can feel it, whether you believe me or not, fine, I don't care—but he is alive in there, and I am going to bring him back! And that man has been screwing around with him! It's really messing him up! I can feel it!"

"Kamui…" Keiichi said quietly. "You're going to get the nurses in here again."

"Fuck them!" Kamui swung his legs over the side of the hospital bed and screwed his eyes in pain. "—I'm going to find Fuuma. He's in danger."

"You are not!" Yuzuriha spilled Inuki on the ground and gently shoved Kamui back into place. Keiichi stood and hovered over her. She managed to force his legs back atop the mattress without severely jarring his shoulder. The doctors had already set the bone and placed him in a cast, but given his past recovery rates the cast was expected to be off within the week. It was going to be a job to keep the campus medical researchers from swarming on him. _A job, like crazy. God, Kamui, why do you have to get into so much trouble? You're going to get yourself killed! Everybody is worried sick about you; why do you have to do this? It's stupid! You're not accomplishing anything!_

"Look… I know how you feel." She stroked his forehead gently with the back of her hand and offered him some water from his bedside table. He took a sip gratefully. "I—I haven't been in your position, so I can't say that I _really_ understand, but… I can imagine what it would feel like if somebody I loved turned into a monster like that. I would probably act like you are right now. Not think and go crazy. But you have to stop, Kamui. You're only hurting yourself and making us all worry sick."

Inuki tugged at the hem of her sock. She giggled and nudged him away with the side of her foot. Keiichi looked at the floor as if expecting to see a rat and blinked when he saw nothing; she knew that she could not see Inuki, but it was no fault of his. There were people who could see him. _Oh, Inuki, I'm so glad you're back. Everything seems so much better now, even if you were just living in my heart. I'm so glad you're back._

"You're making all of us worry, Kamui-chan. I know that you're in pain right now, and I think I can understand that, at least – I thought Inuki was dead – but you can't go off making it worse by looking for trouble." She leaned on her elbows on the edge of the bed and stared into Kamui's eyes. He was forcing himself to calm down, but the turmoil was still evident. "We'll get him back, Kamui-chan. We'll find a way. I know we can. I met Fuuma-san, and I saw how nice he is. Even if I didn't know him very well, I want him to come back. I know it'll make you happy. I met somebody special to me, so I know what I would do to defend him. I think you would do the same thing. Let us help you."

"…thanks, Yuzuriha." Kamui gave her a wan smile and patted her folded hands. _He's so awkward, but he's so sweet. I hope everything ends up all right, for your sake, Kamui. Just don't try anything more stupid. Please, just use your head for once, sometimes._

Yuzuriha adjusted her weight to allow herself to extend her hand, pinky out. Kamui stared at it.

"I already did this with Subaru, and I don't know if it worked or not—something tells me it didn't—but I want to do it with you. You have to promise me that if anything comes up, you will call on me, or somebody else, for help. You can't take this on by yourself. If you get yourself killed, it won't help anybody. It will only make us all sad. Please tell me you at least know that much."

Kamui stared at her hand for a moment, gave Keiichi a fleeting glance as though asking for advice, and must have seen some form of encouragement with which he felt at odds. He sighed and closed his eyes.

"I can't do that, Yuzuriha."

"_Why not?_" Yuzuriha shoved her pinky under Kamui's nose and leaned over him threateningly. "Stop it; you're going to make me turn gray! You're worrying me sick! And everybody else here! Why won't you take any help from anybody? You're just being prideful and _stupid_!"

"This is not the sort of thing that anybody can help me with."

"That's a lie, and you know it."

"You don't understand. You don't know what's going on."

"Maybe I don't, but maybe I also know that we can find ways to help you, whatever it is, and that nobody here wants you to get hurt or get _killed_." She started to tear up. She angrily wiped her eyes and shook her head. Her chest was filling with blind rage. _Not here, not now. I am not going to get emotional on him. He won't take me seriously._ She took a deep breath and forced calm down the core of her chest. She clenched the sheets to control her shaking hands. "We love you, Kamui, and we want to help you get Fuuma back, and quite frankly, it would be nice if you lived to tell the tale. If you die, that's _it_, Kamui! If you get maimed, you'll be miserable, and we'll all hurt with you. You have to be careful!"

"I cannot involve any of you in—"

The door opened. Subaru stepped into the room, slightly disheveled, exhausted, and already removing his shoulder bag from night school and depositing it into the chair by the door. The bandage around his eye was falling loose. Inuki scampered to him and eagerly tried to claw up his leg.

"…sorry I'm late." Subaru tucked the loose strap of his bandage into the surrounding folds, knelt to scoop Inuki belly-up into the cradle of his arms, and walked to Kamui's bedside. The puppy pawed playfully at his chin and yapped. Subaru gave him a weak smile and set him on the side of the bed. He promptly half-fell, half-stumbled off to stand behind his mistress's legs.

"Subaru-san, are you all right? Do you need me to see if a nurse can help you with that?"

"Fine. Just a little tired." Subaru gave Yuzuriha a wan smile—_and he's not fooling anybody; he's a terrible liar. That smile is like glass—_and looked down at Kamui. Kamui was giving him the sort of look that is a clear, dire request to speak in private.

"…I am glad to see that you have returned safely with your companion," said Subaru, looking from Yuzuriha to Keiichi and obviously trying to find the best way to word a request for privacy. "We have all been worried about you."

"I'm glad to be back." Yuzuriha gave Kamui one last look that plainly said 'You have not heard the last of this', kissed him on the forehead, gave Subaru a hug, and tugged on Keiichi's arm. Kamui slightly flushed and touched the blessed skin. "Keiichi and I are going to get something in the cafeteria. We'll be back in a little bit."

"…right." Keiichi looked at Yuzuriha to confirm that she was thinking along his lines to leave them alone, saw the confirmation, and escorted her into the hallway. Inuki scampered out of the room after them and collided with the backs of Yuzuriha's legs. Yuzuriha giggled and collected him to her chest once again.

"I'm so glad you're back, Inuki."

"Is that your dog?"

Her heart caught. …_no way… _"You can see Inuki?"

"No, but Kamui has told me about him." He cautiously reached in the general direction of Yuzuriha's chest. His hand passed through Inuki's head. He quickly pulled his fingers back before she could interpret his action as anything remotely perverse. She could see the familiar skepticism etched into his face, but it was quickly and mercifully replaced by a relaxed smile. _At least he's not going to get on my case about it, even if he does think I'm a nut job. I wonder if Kamui talks about us a lot._

The thought gave her a degree of satisfaction. She wiped her eyes again with the back of her hand and smiled up at Keiichi. She liked him; he was the sort of friend that Kamui needed—upbeat and relatively sane. _He's also cute, but I'm definitely not interested in him that way. I can't be right now. I guess that space in my heart is taken right now. I wish Kusanagi was as pretty as he is. Maybe it is possible to like more than one person that way; I've seen it happen, but I can't understand it. I guess it has to happen to me for me to understand it._

"It's very late, isn't it?" asked Keiichi.  
"What? Oh…" Yuzuriha looked at the hallway clock. "It's about one AM. Why?"

"Already? Jeez…" Keiichi sighed. "I think I'll sleep through class tomorrow."

"Is that any different than any other day?"

"No, but now I have a good reason."

Yuzuriha giggled and returned to her mental space. Keiichi tilted his head.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"Oh! Nothing, I was just… hey, I have a question."

"Yes?"

Yuzuriha scratched Inuki atop of his head stopped at a fork in the hallway. She noted that the cafeteria was to the right and faced Keiichi fully. Keiichi stopped and stared back at her. "Do you think it's rude for people to say that they understand things if they haven't been through them?"

"…I don't think it's rude at all. It's at least an attempt on that person's part to provide comfort. Nothing done with good intentions is rude in my eyes."

"I think it's nicer for people to say that they can't understand, but they know that they don't want these people to feel the pain and that they at least want to help. I don't know." She kissed Inuki on the forehead and started walking down the right fork of the hallway. Keiichi followed her. "It's something I've been wondering about, if general pain feels the same for all things, or if there are different kinds of pain I don't know about. If I can't help people because I don't understand perfectly what they're going through. My friends… go through a lot of different things, you might say. We all have our pains."

"Pain is just pain to me." Keiichi shrugged. "And I think that's nonsense; you can help anybody you want to help. Well… maybe not, and if you try to save the world, you'll die of exhaustion and frustration, but I think that you can do a heck of a lot if you try your hardest. Even if you mess up sometimes, I mean, you can still… just by being there and caring…"

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Yuzuriha smiled at him and took his hand, shifting Inuki's weight to the crook of the opposite arm. "I'm really hungry. Come on."

"So am I." Keiichi stumbled after Yuzuriha, caught himself upright, and fell into step. "The food here is surprisingly good for a hospital. It's almost like a restaurant."

"That would be the campus. Hey…" Yuzuriha stopped pressed the 'down' button aside the elevator doors. Keiichi bumped into her. "…I have another question. It's… well, it's sort of a stupid question. I was just wondering about it."

"There are no stupid questions. Shoot."

"Do you think it's possible to love more than one person at a time _that way_?"

"Huh?"

"I mean… I don't know how to put it." She twisted her toe behind her opposite ankle and scratched Inuki absentmindedly. The pup batted at her hands. "…it's like… well… right now, I just love this one person, you know, that special way, like he's the only one special to me or ever will be, even if I've been told that I have nothing to compare this feeling to and it might not be love—it might be all I've ever experienced, you know? But I'm pretty sure he's the one. I just _know_. You know?"

"Sure. I've seen it happen."

"Well, yeah. Anyway… about my question…" The elevator stopped at their floor; Yuzuriha and Keiichi boarded. It was mercifully abandoned. "…just…" she was momentarily hypnotized by the blinding light shining into the elevator, watching the bar of light enclose on itself from both sides, and in that concentrate flow to a glare until it suddenly cut off all together. She blinked. "…weird."

"What?"

"Nothing, just… that was odd. The way the light did that thing."

"…okay."

"Anyway." The elevator started to move. "I just wonder… you know, if some people can love two people that way at one time. Or three, four, whatever. I'm sure it would be confusing. I mean… in the end, you have to choose one, don't you?"

"I guess, yeah." Keiichi sighed, stretched, and leaned back against the elevator. "Never really thought about it because I see it happen all the time around school. All of these obnoxious love triangles. It must come with adolescence. The human heart has an unlimited capacity to love. You know, you were kind of asking if it was possible, well—" The elevator stopped; they both stepped off and walked toward the cafeteria. "—in a way… reminds me of something my mother used to say. The heart is tied to the imagination, so anything you can imagine – you know, like asking that question; you must have imagined it – is possible."

"Even if I myself don't feel it?"

"Maybe someday you will. And, quite frankly, I hope that you never do. I… it's very rare that I see somebody truly divided about the issue; they're usually just confused until they discover which one is the one. Maybe there is somebody with more than one 'special someone' in the truest sense, when all is said and done, but it's usually all confusion. I don't know." He stopped to look at the cafeteria menu. _Wow, this place even has a menu…_ "People always want to be the special one; they can't just take what profuse, deep, friendship-love is given to them. It can be just as strong, if you ask me, just different. And because of that, those situations always result in pain for somebody. Somebody has to be odd-out in the end. Happened to Jouji-kun last week; he's been up in my dorm sleeping and avoiding school so he doesn't see his crush with her boyfriend."

"Seems like a rather weak thing to do."

"He's hurting; give him his space. Couldn't change how that girl felt about him in the end—no matter how much she loved him, he wasn't the special one—and even though he knows that, he thinks he's worthless. I kicked him in the head the other day and told him to go to class, but he didn't really move. Well, yeah I guess he _is_ being rather lame. He's convinced that she's the special one and that he will never heal, even though I told him that he has no way of knowing, and that he said that about his _last _girlfriend. But noooo, let's not listen to Keiichi; he's just an airhead. He has no way of knowing."

"I don't think you're an airhead. I think you're full of wisdom."

"And, according to some people, something else."

Yuzuriha laughed and bounced Inuki in her arms. Keiichi held the door for her and followed her to the end of the line. Several of the medical staff were waiting to enter the concentric food selection. Yuzuriha stood on tiptoe and licked her lips; they did indeed have an amazing selection for a hospital. _Or a restaurant, for that matter. Where does the campus get all of this money?_

"Never been in here?"

"Yeah. Surprising, considering how much my friends end up in here."

Keiichi laughed. "Yeah, you have a point. We think the campus must be selling drugs to get the money to do stuff like this. Or trafficking in pretty students; something like that. We definitely have enough of those. Seriously, though, a lot of money comes out of the things our research divisions patent."

"Yeah. Well, you guys are the top research facility in the entire country. You guys do some pretty amazing stuff. I mean, I guess 'we' now, since I'm a student. It's quite an honor to be a part of this school."

"Yeah… but… huh, now you've got me thinking." Keiichi crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. Yuzuriha tilted her head and scratched Inuki between the ears. "It's… I guess the only situation in which that triangle-thing wouldn't cause pain would be if all parties involved love one another mutually; sure, it's possible." He licked his lips. "There were three girls who once tried it; they were sort of always advertising it around school. Not complaining, mind."

"You _pervert_." Yuzuriha whapped him on the arm and started laughing. Keiichi covered his arm as though he had been wounded and edged away, also laughing.

"Scary woman. You really like to crack the whip, don't you?"

"No! Not at all!"

"I know, I know." He straightened back against the wall and sighed, smiling. He looks so tranquil when he's thinking. Just like Kusanagi-san. "They… well, it didn't work out. Somebody ended up getting kicked out. It just caused a massive amount of pain for that girl. Every example I've seen makes me think that more-than-one person just can't work out—people, I guess, are inherently too selfish, they want that one-on-one focus—or it's just too rare to find something that truly is mutually beneficial for all parties involved, truly reciprocal from all angles, so nobody is being shorted, because that's just not fair, and nobody should have to put up with that—but I'm sort of a fool." He linked his hands over his head and stretched. "It probably works just fine for someone, somewhere. If the heart can desire it, it is possible. I have that foolish belief."

"It's not foolish. I think it's beautiful." She leaned over in front of Keiichi and grinned. "Talking to you really does make me feel better."

"It does?" Keiichi smiled back. "I like talking to you, as well."

"Good! You don't have to put on all of these masks like other people. It seems a lot smarter to me not to play games." She straightened and sighed. "I read a saying on a website once: 'Fools do the impossible because they don't know that it is impossible'. I think it's a really nice saying. Sort of like saying, you know, if you believe something is impossible, you've already made yourself loose."

"Yeah, I thought about that once. Sounds like something my mother would say."

"…I'm really sorry. I heard… I…" she looked down. _Wait to go. You really hurt his feelings. Baka, Yuzuriha._ "…I guess I shouldn't—"

"No, don't worry. You can't avoid everything that will remind me of my mother. You can't do that when somebody is constantly on somebody's mind. _Everything_ will remind you." He laughed sadly. "I'm really doing all right. I want to move on and be happy; that is also what she would want. I don't want her to worry, wherever she is. Being sad won't change anything, so I might as well make the best of it."

"…you know what?"

"What?"

"I think you're a really strong, amazing person, Keiichi-san."

"…thank you."

"You're welcome!" Yuzuriha grinned at Keiichi once again; Keiichi returned an equally enthusiastic smile, though laced with the vestiges of pain.

"Well, I guess if fools do the impossible, I'm set up to save the whole world. Or make a threesome work, or a quad, whatever. But you've got to have more than one fool for that stuff."

"Fool's not the same as idiot, I don't think. Fools are more… just… they're very smart in their own way. Sort of naïve, detached. Something. I don't know. I really think they're the people who change the world. They're… I guess… well, you know how people see something occurring right in front of them and they _still_ say it's not possible? _Those_ are idiots. There's a big difference."

"Power to the fools, then. Maybe I'll do pretty well for myself."

"You will! I have absolute faith in that! If somebody like you can't survive, Keiichi, there's no hope for anybody."

"Why, thank you." Keiichi grinned at her and nodded down the line. "We're getting there. I want a teriyaki bowl; I'm absolutely starved. Say… out of curiosity, why exactly did you ask that question about people loving more than one person? Anything going on with you along those lines?"

"What? Me? No." Inuki flopped back-up and sniffed the air. He was finding things to his liking. "I've just noticed something about a friend of mine… maybe I'm paranoid, but I think he's the sort of person who does that. Sort of… how do I explain?" She thought for a moment. Inuki nibbled on her sleeve. "He lives with such hot-and-cold extremes. It's like… he has friends… and then people he loves _that way_… no just best friends. Either because he's just confused or… well… he hasn't really experienced that sort of love and he's confusing deep friendship love for that… because, hey, even if it's sort of messed up I've confused that before, and I wouldn't mind kissing my friends or something; it's just a deep form of expression… I don't know." She shied away. _Great, he must think I'm a pervert or something now._ "…maybe it's like, society's only said that kissing and stuff is for lovers, but it's natural to want to do that with best friends. Is that just a girl thing?"

"…um… I don't know." He coughed. "Maybe."

_Oh, great, he really does think I'm a pervert or a nympho. Are girls really the sex-crazed ones, just in a different way? Where did all of this come from, anyway? I must be losing my mind. _"I mean… I wouldn't sleep with them, no, but, like, making out… forget it. Anyway." She sighed. "Anyway, this friend… well, let's just say that he's sort of cursed to fall in love _that way_ with his best friends, or so it seems, and that he has just as many people desiring his exclusive… attentions. Do you think there are people like that? People who… I don't know… have something about them that makes everybody they touch fall in love with them?"

"Oh, of course. That would be called oozing sex appeal."

"More than just that. It's like… this might just be an inkling, but I'm getting some vibes off some people… there are lot of people around him who are falling for him, hard. And I think he's getting confused, both with his own emotions and theirs."

"And we wouldn't be talking about our little hotheaded trouble-magnet, would we?"

"Actually… yeah, we are." She sighed. "And I used to have a huge crush on him too—there was just something about him—but I realize that _was_ just a crush; I do have a basis for comparison for my current feelings, you know? But it seems like there's something deeper for all of these people off of whom I'm getting vibes… like it's not just a crush, and there's going to be a lot of trouble. And maybe it just is; maybe there are crushes by degrees, I don't know, but they're going to think it's love, and they're going to hurt. And what if it _is_? And somebody—people—are going to get hurt? Like… I don't think settling for two or three people is going to work in this situation. I just don't. I hope I'm wrong, but there's going to be a lot of pain if I'm right."

"…Subaru-san, right?"

"You've felt it too?"

"It's pretty bloody obvious." He sighed and crossed his arms, leaning shoulder blades-into-wall. "Well… I've felt that from him, too. I'm not… well, believe it or not, I'm straight." He laughed. "It comes as a huge shock to a lot of people, but I prefer women. And I've still felt it. It made me wonder if I was bi. Maybe I am. I have a theory that if you ever feel anything, on that basis alone, the potential is there. Or everybody is just naturally bisexual; I don't know. So I guess I'm bi-preferring-women."

"I guess Kamui's sort of lucky in some ways. And—"

"Unlucky in others, yes." Keiichi sighed again. "Oh man. Well, I guess some people just make others fall in love with them, somehow. People like that have a cross to bear. While they might never be in short supply of people to love them that way, they themselves will walk through life breaking hearts, both those dear to them and not. And in the case of somebody gentle such as Kamui, the fact that they cause pain in their loved ones by having to tell them that they don't reciprocate will hurt him as well, because he will still love them, just in a different, strong way. But people are foolish; they always want more, want what they can't have, and they can't control that even if they are aware of it. The heart is foolish. And it will probably wreck friendships Kamui has, make them weird and drive the other away out of pain. Kamui isn't so lucky after all." He thought for a moment. "The guilt will probably gnaw at him. But do you know what would be even more tragic? If he is surrounded by people who desire him whom he doesn't desire that way in return, and the one person he desires that way does not feel the same way for _him_. Wouldn't that be a true tragedy?"

"Sounds like a bad manga."

"Life is full of melodrama." Keiichi laughed. "I try to avoid it, but you have to take it to get involved in anything worthwhile. All you can do is make a good time of it."

"But… Subaru-san I have to worry about." Yuzuriha cuddled Inuki. The puppy made a small noise of comfort and licked her nose. She smiled. "Thank you, Inuki. But, in any case, I can tell that Kamui has some really mixed up feelings for a lot of people. One of those people, I think, is Subaru, and he's going to get pulled in. I just don't want him to hurt. I don't want anybody to hurt."

"Who knows. Maybe Kamui and Subaru will elope and be in Hawaii by this time next week. Maybe they'll live happily ever after in a house with a white picket fence and three kids. Kamui would make a lovely housewife."

Yuzuriha burst out laughing and whacked Keiichi on the arm again. "You're terrible!"

"It's true." He shrugged. "Oh, you know I love Kamui. I'm just teasing."

"I know."

"Seriously, though, how can they have kids? They're both guys."

"CLAMP Campus research is working on a way to have that happen. That way same-sex couples can have children of their own."

"That would be so cute! And it would be really nice; I know there are men and women who love each other who want the same opportunity to have children as everybody else. I would be so happy for them."

"I would be scared of their kids. Severely depressed, hot-tempered, powerful, scrawny_—_"

"Oh god, and pretty."

"Very pretty. Damn." He laughed. "I'm going swish."

"Nah, don't say that. It just sounds bad."

"I'm not saying it as a bad thing. I'm just saying… but anyway." He looked toward the front of the line. "Damn, this is a long line. In any case, this sort of thing happens every day. And people heal, people move on, and find the ones just for them. A lot of people date around and think they've found the one when they haven't, and they do it over and over again. And they're so sure, and it hurts so much when it ends. They think they're going to die. It all works out in the end, though. I have to believe that or go insane. If you haven't had a lot, you know, dated and felt all of the deep degrees of love, you won't know just how right the one person is. You can be easily confused. I'm—I'm not advocating playing the field or anything if you don't want to; some people find the right one on the first or second try, and that's fine. That's good. I'm just saying… you know…"

"I know what you're trying to say." She jostled Inuki playfully. The puppy batted at her cheeks and yapped. "And I think you're very right. You have a lot of wisdom, Keiichi. I don't know why people think you're an airhead."

"I am one by nature. I've just known a lot of people and seen a lot of things." He pointed at himself and winked. "I make a lot of friends very fast. I'm very pushy."

"I've noticed. And that's good; it's what Kamui needs, for once. A healthy, upbeat, sane friend."

Keiichi started laughing. "I don't know about healthy or sane, but…"

"I mean healthy for him."

"I know, and I still don't know about that…"

"And you really are sane. You've got a good head on your shoulders. Being quirky doesn't make you insane at all, no matter what society might say. True sanity is just clarity of thought, regardless of how unconventional or complex you or your views might be." She nodded. "Kusanagi-san told me that when I told him I thought I was insane. And the more that I think about it, the more it makes sense. Even if I think some of my thoughts are really dark or twisted or insane, like nobody in the whole world thinks that way, or could think that I think that way sometimes because I look cute and innocent… I'm not insane after all. It's very human. He said 'often thought and not spoken', that sort of thing. People think it's irrelevant and that nobody would understand, so they don't talk about it. But when people do talk about it, they're shocked when others actually relate. They feel as if they're not so alone after all."

"He sounds like a very intelligent man."

"He is! He's really wise. I think a lot of it comes from the earth itself, like he can tap into the source of all consciousness. I have odd beliefs on life like that, even though I was raised in a shrine. A lot of my views differ. I can't really talk about it with Grandma; she's really religious and strict about it, but Kusanagi can talk with me about it."

"I would like to meet him someday. He sounds like a cool guy."

"He is!" _Oh, no. If he meets him, he'll think that he's much older than he actually is. He'll probably pick up on the way that I feel about him and get protective. I can't let anybody know how I feel, or they'll try to cut me off. I'm still treated like a child. They mean well, but I can't let them interfere._ "…he's just a dear friend of mine. He has a lovely wife and some children; I've met all of them." _And that would tear my heart apart. No, no, don't think about it. He doesn't. He's alone, but he's got you. Don't dwell on it._

"Ah, an older guy. I was picturing some high school student. You know, your 'special someone'."

"What? No—" _He can't know. I'm sorry, Kusanagi, I have to lie about you. I still love you._ "He's just a friend. It's nice to get to talk to open adults, because, you know, they have a lot of wisdom, and they're rare to find. I mean, the ones who are open enough not to immediately renounce all of your beliefs. He's taught me a lot. I feel like I belong in a twenty-five-year-old body sometimes."

"You've seen a lot and learned a lot in a short amount of time. And you're a smart girl." He stopped at the root of the tray rack. "Ah, here we are, finally. Do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"No."

"Who is your special someone?"

"Um…" _Oh, great…_ "…somebody from my past."

"Somebody you'll never see again?"

"I hope that isn't the case, but I haven't seen him in years. I keep fearing that he's changed or something, or moved on and found a girlfriend."

"Maybe you should also move on." Keiichi smiled at her. "Maybe there are other people around who are falling for you."

"…what?"

"You know, give somebody else a chance." He laughed softly. "What we were talking about. See if you can compare."

_…oh my god._ _Oh. My. God._ Yuzuriha forced her eyes to relax from being so wide open it felt as though her eyeballs were being pushed out and swallowed. Inuki sensed her shock and whimpered. _He can't be serious… oh my god… oh my god …he's probably just playing around. Or he knows somebody else who's been talking about me… he's not…_

_…oh no…_


	8. Shadows

_When all you can think about is just one man… only a person with an ailing heart can do that._

* * *

It was gone.

Subaru lowered his arm from shielding his eyes, slowly watching the echoing, dark hallway through his fingers until he felt at ease enough to fully drop his arm. He took a deep breath. There was only a curl of pearly smoke undulating from some hidden vestige-node of power settled in the air, akin to incense. The smoke illuminated the black air.

He took a deep breath and cautiously walked forward over broken window glass, feeing every crunch through his spine and allowing the feeling to lance up through his bones and settle on his shoulders. He shifted his ofuda between his fingers and prepared to throw them at the first indication of another approaching presence. The atmosphere was tangibly tense. The scattering of braver patrons and medical staff were straightening from curled positions against the walls and poking heads out of rooms, respectively shaking glass off of their clothing and hair and yelling concern and requests for information regarding what the hell had happened. One of the doctors demanded that Subaru explain; Subaru ignored her. Somebody down the hallway called hysterically that all of the backup power sources had failed, simultaneously. The screaming faded into a distant commotion and a surrounding of unsettling panic.

Subaru slid over the glass mosaic and took a deep breath of the rain-laden, cool night air wafting from the jagged windows. The wind played with the smoke and swirled it into a stringy cyclone, fishtailing until it dissipated.

The power came back on. Computers whined back to life; printers started to spit documents in the nurses' station a few yards away. Phones started ringing off the hook. With the light came a long moment of shock, followed by some sort of communal renewed vigor and remembrance of the far less surreal reality in need of attendance. The medical staff ran in search of various tasks and information, the guests going in search of the same, but with less direction and more personal agendas. Subaru sighed and allowed the tension to slide out of his shoulders and melt down his back.

_…Kamui…_

Subaru walked back into Kamui's room and closed the door to the commotion in the hallway. Kamui was hugging his knees as tightly as his wounds would allow and facing the blown-out window, quaking. The hospital gown left his slender back open and revealed the white brace securing his shoulder's blue fiberglass cast. Subaru stopped tentatively, not knowing whether to make a clear indicator of his presence to allow Kamui time to dry up if he was crying, or whether to approach silently and see if he actually _was_ crying or just gnashing in shock. He sighed and slipped forward. If Kamui was in the mood to sense him, he would.

"Kamui, are you all right?"

Kamui shuddered and tensed his neck so tightly that his head shook from the root. It looked as though he was having a seizure. Subaru stopped in front of him and watched carefully for a moment, noting that Kamui's eyes were glassy and distant, dilated severely, and twitching in forming pools of tears. Kamui blinked rapidly and screwed his eyes shut, sucking in air. The gathering liquid spilled down his cheeks.

Subaru hesitated and then sat down aside Kamui on the edge of the bed to rub his back. Kamui tensed under the touch—Subaru felt a lance through his stomach at the aversion—and then relaxed. Both sighed in relief.

"…what?"

"Huh?"

"Nothing. You just… sighed. I don't know."

"Oh. Um. Just glad you're all right." Subaru smiled to himself and kneaded the nape of Kamui's neck, attention the latter was numbly absorbing. Subaru hoped that he could also assume a degree of gratefulness and healing coming from his ministrations. He sighed once again and began to also massage Kamui's good shoulder with his free hand. The muscles were incredibly tense.

"Relax. You're going to be all right. I promise."

"…it's not me I'm so worried about."

"…oh." A weight dropped into Subaru's stomach as he stared at the back of Kamui's bowed head. Kamui sighed and shifted under his fingers. _He's not thinking about me, even though I'm touching him like this. I can't take this. I. Cannot. Take. This._

"Subaru, are you all right?"

Subaru opened heavy eyes and gazed back at Kamui vaguely, then closed his eyes once again. The poison in his stomach was spreading and turning his heart to lead. He sighed, despairingly concentrating on the heat and tension beneath Kamui's skin, and coming to the conclusion that even though he had finally been able to get this close, the touches were received and nullified as completely chaste. _It was better when I could fantasize on a different response. Nervousness, shallow breathing, fluttering eyes, leaning back. Wanting to receive this. I—_

"Subaru?"

"Fine. Really. Fine." Subaru sighed and moved his thumb beneath Kamui's shoulder blade to knead the tension out of the joint. Kamui took a shaking breath. Subaru sighed and shook his head.

"Don't worry."

"…I'm scared."

"I am as well. We have a good reason to be scared." Subaru sighed and closed his eyes once again. He was recalling clearly the details of what he had seen, bringing to the front of his mind the image that had been tickling his current preoccupation and chuckling at the futility of his general actions in the sphere of relationships. The skin beneath his palm faded into a dim, hot presence, his anchor on reality. He sighed and locked the offending image into his mind. It was staring at him. It frightened him.

It was staring at _him_.

_Sei—_

----------------

"…_I see."_

"_Yeah."_

"_Yeah..."_

_Subaru sat aside Kamui's bed in one of the provided plastic chairs and stared at the wall, chin in hand, avoiding Kamui's eyes as Kamui was avoiding his. Both were lost in individual pools of jealousy and isolation. _

"…_so, you're sure that's what you saw? I mean… you're SURE… you weren't assuming—"_

"_I am pretty fucking sure, Subaru."_

"…_so."_

"_Yeah, you were right."_

_Subaru glanced at Kamui. The boy was sitting upright and clutching his sheets into knots, staring in the opposite direction. Subaru sighed and reached for his breast pocket, recalled the ordinance against smoking in the hospital, and folded his hands in his lap. He sighed.  
"…this is what I feared."_

_Kamui did not reply. Subaru sighed again and shook his head._

"_Kamui, you have to talk to me. I know that you're angry—"_

"_I'm going to kill him."_

"_What?"_

"_I am going to rip his head off." Kamui glared at Subaru and crossed his arms. "I don't care how you feel about him, Subaru, and I'm really sorry, but I am going to kill him myself. I know that was your wish. I—" Kamui stopped, took several deep breaths, relaxed his shoulders, and licked his lips. Subaru stared back blankly._

"…_sorry." Kamui looked away once again. "…I forgot. He killed your sister, didn't he? You have more of a right to him than I do, no matter what he did to me or Fuuma. It—but are you actually going to kill him?"_

_Subaru stared dully at Kamui beneath heavy eyelids. Kamui glanced over his shoulder quickly before resuming his vigil of the wall._

"…_Subaru, are you gay?"_

"…_what?"_

"_You really are in _love _with Sakurazuka, aren't you?_

And this wasn't obvious? I thought that I reflected rainbows as badly as you do, Kamui.

"_Yes, I am homosexual. And… yeah, I am…" _

"_I don't mind. I've got nothing against it. It... was just kind of obvious. I mean…" Kamui glanced over his shoulder nervously. "…do you like girls… at all? I mean… do you swing both ways?"_

"_No, I don't." Subaru sighed and pulled the Mild Sevens pack out of his breast pocket, remembered once again that smoking was not allowed, and fiddled with it nervously. He flicked the edge of the cellophane with his fingernail. "I… well, I had a crush back in elementary school on this one girl, but that was before I was mature. I… I don't know." He stared at the face of the pack. "…I didn't maintain an interest in anybody before Seishirou. I… well, Hokuto—she's my sister—tried to set me up with several girls before I met him. It just didn't feel right. I liked them a lot—they were really nice—but I didn't feel_ something. _Some basic potential attraction. I never felt anything when I saw pretty girls in magazines or on television. I mean, I thought they were nice to look at, the same way Hokuto-chan did, and their outfits were nice, but I didn't feel_ something. _I—I did when there were pretty men on TV. Hokuto realized that I was gay before I did. She was… she was really nice about it. I thought she would get weirded out." He smiled and flipped the pack over. "She even thought it was cute. She had to keep it from Grandma, though. That was a few months before Seishirou walked into our lives. She jumped on the opportunity when she found out that he was bisexual. It didn't take long to figure out."_

"…_Seishirou's bi?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_And… you're okay with that?"_

"_Huh?"_

"_I mean… you don't think it's really off base or something?"_

"_Well… I can't understand it myself. I mean… most people swing one way or the other. Being truly bisexual is incredibly rare. It—well, when I first heard of the idea, it made little sense to me. It was almost as if you would sleep with anything. I—I couldn't really understand it. It seemed to take the meaning out of sexuality. But I was still, you know, okay with the idea. But Seishirou wasn't like that. He was so normal. Or… hell… bad example. I don't know. Sort of. Um. Why do you ask__—__"_

"_Just wondering. I mean… so you'd be okay being with a guy who was bi?"_

_Subaru gave Kamui a wan smile and pocketed the cigarette pack. "Would I be so tortured if I wouldn't?"_

"…_oh." Kamui was still facing the wall and intermittently taking nervous glances at Subaru over his shoulder. "So… it's like… really uncommon. And people think it's freakish."_

"…_yeah." Subaru shrugged. "People think the same thing about being gay, to some degree. Hokuto-chan advised me to keep that hidden so that my career wouldn't suffer, which she said would be a job to keep under wraps considering how much I, according to her, 'reflected rainbows' everywhere I went. She said I was the cutest little gay boy she had ever seen." He smiled sadly to himself. "…I… really miss her."_

"_I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring her up."_

"_You didn't. I did." Subaru sighed. "When something is always on your mind, everything will bring it up. You could talk about the weather and I would remember how much she liked the sunshine."_

"…_I see." Kamui looked around the room, seemingly distracted. His breathing was becoming shallow. Subaru looked up and creased his eyebrows._

"_Kamui, are you all right?"_

"_Fine. It's… just… a little hot in here…" his voice trailed off._

"_Would you like some water? Do you feel faint?"_

"_No, I… actually, yeah."_

_Subaru stood, pushed the over-bed table back over Kamui's lap, and poured water out of the half-full pitcher of the sort left in all rooms. Kamui accepted the glass with shaking hands and drank the entire glass in two gulps. He reached for the pitcher and nearly knocked it over._

"…_sorry—"_

"_No, I'll do it." Subaru poured Kamui another glass and watched as he downed the water. His face was flushed. The boy blinked several times, squirmed, and drew his knees up to his chest, turning sideways to avoid knocking the table. He was taking deep, calming breaths._

…shit… "_Kamui, it's happening again, isn't it?"_

"_God-damn-fucking-bastard-I'm-going-to-kill-him."_

"_Kamui, you have to let me in."_

"_GET AWAY!"_

"_Kamui!—"_

"_This is disgusting! Get away from me! I'm a freak!"_

"_What the—KAMUI." Subaru stood up, firmly yanked Kamui's hands off of his eyes, and shook his shoulders. "Kamui, look at me. It's all right. This isn't your fault. You have to let me dive in. I have to see what is happening."_

"_NO!"_

"_Kamui, please." Subaru brushed Kamui's hair out of his eyes and stared at him. "Look at me. Focus on me. All right. Calm down." Kamui was beginning to writhe. "It's all right. You're not disgusting, Kamui. You can't help this. This is a natural, healthy response. You have to let me in. For a second, stop throwing up walls to try to keep everything out. I promise I won't let him get you. I can't make that promise if you don't trust me."_

"_NOT DISGUSTING? IT'S GETTING ME OFF—"_

"_That's normal, all right?"_ /I'm the nasty one. I'm getting off just watching you./ _Subaru sighed, ran his fingers through Kamui's hair until he was cradling the temples, and touched his forehead against Kamui's, still stroking Kamui comfortingly with his fingertips. Kamui's skin was slick and hot. Subaru took a shuddering breath, attempted to force himself with little success to ignore Kamui's breath on his own neck and the small mewing noises he was trying to suppress, and closed his eyes. "All right, I'm going to dive in."_ Sicko. Sicko. Don't even think of it in that sense. Concentrate. "_Open up."_

_Subaru slipped through the minute opening in Kamui's mental defenses and fell out of his body into Kamui's subconscious. He probed around blearily, sensing the pseudo-corporeal and weightless formation his own consciousness was taking to maintain distinction as its own entity, separate of Kamui, and glanced around the most pressing turmoil. The lower layers of Kamui's mind, the memories and the very back where constant thoughts lingered, Subaru saw represented as a maelstrom beneath the dark space of the current preoccupation. It was the space directly behind Kamui's eyes and atop his mind where Subaru currently drifted._

_Subaru spread his back-awareness to the infinitely complex architecture of Kamui's mind and maintained his current concentration on the events unfolding in the dark. It was just as Kamui had explained – as though walking into a pitch-black room from the sunlight. Thoughts were beginning to form and develop distinction and depth as the weight in Kamui's mind subsided. Subaru shuddered without knowing the cause and glanced around carefully, probing with his own mind into the fabric of the thoughts. The consciousness flowed into his own and processed through his mind._

This would be a beautiful thing for lovers to do. See the same dreams, comprehend the same thoughts, no more isolation, far more—STOP IT CONCENTRATE CONCENTRATE CONCENTRATE—

Seishirou.

_Subaru stared in blind terror and shock at the presence that was beginning to become coherent. There was a second presence – a dark mirror, a blank reflection of another soul superimposed over a repressed consciousness that Subaru realized was the actual Fuuma. Seishirou's mind was flowing through the mirror's, melding slowly, reaching past the mirror and skimming over the actual Fuuma's sleeping heart. Kamui's spirit was merging into the deluge and superimposing over the mirror. Subaru glanced around the architecture, feeling all around him in every essence of Kamui the big picture and the actual effects of the merger of consciousnesses that paralleled the smaller, more detached symbols unfolding before him. Subaru gasped. Kamui and Fuuma were lying within the same corporeal "body", and the Dark Kamui's persona was perfectly overlapping sections of Kamui's deep subconscious. It settled at the bottom of his heart, entrapped perfectly by the original._

A shadow.

_Fuuma awoke. Subaru felt the new, awakened consciousness slip into the merger, utterly confused, disoriented, terrified, frantic, and yet somehow numbed, as though in a drugged stupor. Kamui's consciousness locked up in shock. _

_The gears of fate ground to a halt._

_Subaru gasped, only numbly aware of the stillness as the other three consciousnesses were. Seishirou was becoming progressively more detached and stroking eagerly at Subaru's essence, beckoning him to come closer and open further. Kamui and Fuuma were lying within the same shell, poignantly aware of one another as individuals, separate once again, and then broken off. Their immediate memories faded into a sustained stupor._

_Subaru gasped and glanced at the symbols coming into coherent relief. Skin so pale it glowed like milk, inky hair, long limbs, broad, angular shoulders, completely bare, a mismatched pair of eyes— this was one of Seishirou's illusions, he knew damn well, conjured to be seen in the mind's eye—staring. Staring. Smirking. He was perched on the side of the bed, stroking somebody's hair. Fuuma—Fuuma was lying on the bed of congealed darkness, eyes rolling back into his head and flickering fitfully, loose as a rag doll. All of the aggression and malice had melted from his being. _

_Seishirou nodded to Subaru and continued to stroke. He smiled._

What do you want, Seishirou?—

_Smile__—_

* * *

"Subaru!"

Subaru looked up sharply. Kamui was shaking Subaru's shoulder, twisted around from his perch on the bed. Kamui's voice was on edge.

"I've yelled at you at least ten times. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Oh! Yeah, I'm sorry." Subaru replaced his hands on Kamui's shoulders and rotated him about-face once again, continuing with his massage. "No, nothing is wrong, Kamui. I was just thinking about what we just saw… you know, inside of you."

"…you're hiding something from me."

"That's not it."

"What did you see out in the hallway? What happened?"

_A hell of a lot of stuff. The bloody answer to what's been going on._ "…Kamui, there is something I need to tell you about Fuuma."

"What?"

"He's been possessed by a reflection of your shadow."

"...the hell does that mean?"

"That is why he acts the way he does. All right, look." Subaru slid his hands down Kamui's shoulders and turned him aside. Kamui followed and turned himself completely in Subaru's loose grip. "Do you know what a shadow is?"

"…a shadow sacrifice?"

"No. Not a shadow sacrifice. A shadow. A person's personality-shadow."

"No."

"All right." Subaru thought for a moment and shoved his hands into his coat pockets. The bed creaked under the shifted weight. "I'm not good at explaining things. I'll try my best. A shadow is… well…" Subaru held his hand over his heart. "It lines the base of your heart. It's… on a layer beneath your conscious self. It's in the base of your gut as well, so basic that you always know it's there, and yet, you don't. You really don't control it."

"…what?"

"It's your opposite. Like, your inverse reflection. There are several theories that it shows on the outside when people are placed in situations of extreme emotional or mental stress. That's… well, that's what happens when people are put through so much grief that they don't seem like themselves. People who are usually stoic, calm, rational, that sort of thing, go weepy and emotional. People who are usually emotional and weepy turn ice cold and unemotional. For example. I mean… does that make any sense to you? That shadow is part of what makes humans so universal and complex, so… well, full of contradictions."

Kamui was silent. Subaru cleared his throat and continued.

"So, your shadow would be… well, the opposite of you. You're emotional, hot-tempered, you… well, you're self-centered insofar as you only care about what happens to your closest friends and yourself. It's all right; that's not a bad thing. You're… possessive. You're prideful. You're… uh…" _Sexually submissive, at least on the outside. Don't even mention that._ "…you have a strong sense of identity. So your shadow would be… Fuuma. I mean, Dark Fuuma. Unemotional, without any sense of self, pride, or identity, completely changing his appearance and mannerism to avoid conflict and please people – you definitely don't do that; you're standoffish – he… he grants wishes without discrimination."

"_What_?"

"Did any of that make sense to you at all?"

"Sort of. No."

"You know how Fuuma goes around claiming that he's only trying to grant everybody's wish?"

"Yes."

"That is the tendency of your shadow. You… well, when you're faced with people who are in a lot of pain or grieving, do you just want to give them what they desire the most despite the consequences? Even if their wishes conflict with others or would cause destruction and harm? Indulge them, even if it would be better for them to wait out? It's a form of weakness."

"Not really. Well, I don't know. I think everybody does…"

"It would be really hard to know. You… well, you're not very introspective." Subaru sighed. _I'm really tripping all over my self. Good-for-nothing rhetoric class would come in handy right now. Maybe if I had actually attended I would be better at this._ "It's a basic gut reaction, before consciousness, before you realize it. It's below… like, on a layer below what you're thinking, just in the background. You usually brush it off. It's so basic and against your will that you don't give it much regard and let it run in the background, so to speak."

"…I see."

"Did that make any sense at all?"

"No, you're making sense."

"Oh. Good." _He seems mad. Great. Um._ "So what Fuuma is right now is a reflection of that shadow. He's… basically you, Kamui. Your twin star, the other half of 'Kamui'. Your opposite. The Gemini. The compliment. Whatever. It's really _you_ that is in conflict for the fate of the world. One person. You know, like, the complete and… full of opposites, how would you say… _paradoxical_?—paradoxical human mind is fighting for the fate of the world and _I don't know_. I'm not good at this. Sorry."

"…so _I_ killed Kotori."

"NO." Subaru sighed heavily and gripped Kamui's shoulders. Kamui was gritting his teeth and clenching the sheets. _Finally, it comes around to this._ "This is why I didn't want to tell you about this, because I knew that you would start blaming yourself for all of the stuff Fuuma's done. You listen to me." _All right, what did I plan to say again? …shit._ "You could not control your shadow, the same way you absolutely cannot control your emotions. You can only control your actions. And if something picks up on your thoughts, you own shadow—that is hallowed ground—and makes it happen, you can't help that. We all have a shadow. You were just the unlucky one to have it projected without your consent. We… we would all produce monsters like you did."

"But who wished that Kotori would die? Whose wish was that?"

Subaru stopped for a moment and thought. "…she died as soon as the decision was made, didn't she?"

"Yes."

"I see." Subaru thought for a moment. Kamui was glaring straight down at the knotted sheets and blinking rapidly to keep tears of rage from spilling. "I don't know, Kamui."

"But I KILLED HER."

"Maybe she herself wished for death."

"NO!" Kamui buried his head in his hands and whined with the effort of holding back sobs. Subaru poured him another glass of water and offered a tissue from the bedside counter. Kamui took both, gulped down the water, and wiped his nose. "…sorry, just… I… no, Kotori wasn't like that! She was _happy_! She really wanted to live! She was… so full of life. It was… nice…" Kamui moved his mouth blankly and searched for words, crumpling the tissue into his fist. "…I just can't live with myself any more."

"Kamui—"

"Why? I mean—do people really wish for all of that hideous stuff? All of that torture and blood? The—the _tongue_ stuff? What the hell is all of that? This—this can't be what people are really wishing for. It's sick!"

"…there is another part to the shadow."

"Huh?"

"As the name would suggest, the shadow also harbors a lot of suppressed, dark urges. Sort of the fascination with death and blood that some have. Some don't have it. Look…" Subaru smiled at Kamui. "Your shadow is one of the more beautiful in the world. It wishes to grant wishes. Its intention is pure, in a way, even if it does harm. Some shadows are utterly hideous." _Like Seishirou's. Like mine… _ "That—that doesn't make the people any worse so long as they control their actions—it makes it harder; they have more of a burden to carry—but you're just pure gold inside and out."

"Get over yourself. I am _not_. I'm really fucked up."

"…we all are. We all are." Subaru sighed. Kamui took another gulp of water and a deep breath. "The blood stuff… well… it's eh… there is just something alluring about violence and erotica to a lot of people. That's… the licking thing and all of that. I mean, will you admit that you find that stuff sort of hot?"

"Not when it's actually happening to me. It fucking _hurts_."

"Of course it hurts. But it doesn't get you off at all? It isn't at all edgy? That mixture of the cutting stuff and the… well… all of the tongue stuff?" _Like Fuuma practically crawling all over you._

Kamui shrugged and made a non-committal noise.

"That's what I thought. Maybe you also like to deal it out. Yeah. That would make more sense. Fuuma is _your_ shadow, after all."

"What?"

"You're sadistic. Probably a little masochistic. Do you ever have moments where you're just daydreaming and you casually think of doing something like ripping the person's head off next to you or slashing your arms up with a razor? I mean… not consciously, almost. It's sort of a fly-by fantasy. It's… it's really common. That would also—"

"I fucking _do not_. …That's _it_." Kamui hurled the ball of tissue into the trashcan near the wall and tore another one out of the box on Subaru's lap. "I'm going to kill myself."

"You don't mean that."

"Watch me." Kamui blew his nose and sniffed. "…it's selfish of me to want to live if I can't control what I do to people. Nobody else can die."

"I won't allow you to even consider hurting yourself."

"…why?"

"…well…"

"Why do people wish for all of this nonsense?"

_I thought you were going to ask—well, I was going to spill my guts out and somehow drop more hints than I already have been dropping. Kamui, you are so dense. Or you aren't interested in me at all. _"…people don't wish for what's good for them, sometimes." Subaru sighed. "They… well… they wish for specific things, not just to be happy. Sometimes the things they wish for will only cause more pain to them. And wishes conflict. When people wish for the exclusive right to the same thing—a position of power, the love of a person, whatever—there is conflict. That is where Fuuma has no power. Or he has to choose one person to indulge—well, you do."

"This sucks."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Well… why didn't you tell me all of this earlier?"

"…I only had a vague idea. I wanted to be sure." Subaru motioned for permission to have a sip of water. Kamui obliged him. "And I knew you'd blow up like this and start torturing and blaming yourself for something you absolutely cannot control. But what I saw confirmed my theory. And considering what is happening, I think it is best that you know."

"What the hell did you see out in the hallway, anyway?"

"Well, the reflection of your shadow, abandoning its body. It looked exactly like you, just… well, acting like Fuuma's been acting. Those eyes. You know, that look?"

"_Yes_."

"It was like seeing a ghost of yourself. I—well, after I broke consciousness with you, I ran out there to see why the power was cut off all of a sudden. When I got out there, the windows all blew out. People were screaming. It… well, it was kind of cool." Subaru smiled weakly over the rim of the glass and handed it back to Kamui. He had gulped half of the water. "I dispelled it. It disappeared soon after that. That's when the power came back on."

"And it's just… gone?"

"The reflection is gone." Subaru pointed at Kamui's chest. "The original is still right here."

"…I'm going to rip my heart out."

"Shush." Subaru sighed. "There is still a chance that it might… come back…"

"…I know." Kamui sniffed hard and looked up, licking his lips and setting his jaw. He took a deep breath. "So what state is Fuuma in right now? Is he all right?"

"I don't know. He's going to be a little bit messed up in the head for a while."

"…I need to find him."

"Wait. Give it time." Subaru pushed Kamui back down onto his rear. "Trust me. I promise I will go find him later. He's fine for now. _You_ will stay here and rest."

"But Seishirou—"

"Is not hunting." Subaru held up his hands. "My hands would tell me if he was."

"That doesn't mean that he's not raping his brains out or ripping his guts out or something."

"…Seishirou doesn't do that."

"I beg your pardon? What do you think he's been _doing_ lately?"

"Not without good reason. I mean… that's another thing that's been bugging me lately. Other than the obvious jealousy." Subaru weakly smiled at his joke. "…right. Ha. Um. Funny. Okay." Kamui was arching his eyebrow. "… Seishirou doesn't sleep around at all. He's neurotic about not having human emotions, so he wouldn't. I don't think he would even acknowledge his own sexual urges. He has to be up to something."

"The spells, right?"

"I'm positive now that he's doing something like that, because of what I saw, and because of your hands. You're marked like me."

"…with the star?"

"The pentagram, yes. I am positive that I saw it on the back of your hands this afternoon."

"…and that means…?"

"I think that Fuuma has been marked as his prey."

"Why? What the hell has Fuuma done to him?"

"Dark Kamui had the ability to see into people's souls—I think that's another thing, you misunderstand people easily, so he doesn't—beyond any and all defense to see what they truly desire. He probably saw far more in Seishirou than Seishirou himself would want to acknowledge exists inside of him. Fuuma probably has those memories. That would be a perfect reason to kill Fuuma."

"…and prove to Fuuma that he doesn't feel?"

"What?"

"I don't know. It just seems like Seishirou is always trying to prove to everybody that he doesn't feel. It kind of reminds me of some guys I knew when I went to school up north. They were bastards. Real insecure punks. I did a lot of thinking on it, actually."

"You? Think?"

"Shut up." Kamui gave Subaru a wan smile and threw a wadded tissue at him. Subaru felt a drop in his stomach. _His smile looks like mine. Dear god, Kamui, please don't turn into me. God, no, please. _"I guess because I was just like them in a lot of ways. I was a punk."

"You _are _a punk."

"I mean a _real_ punk. Ditching school, sleeping underneath bridges, smoking between classes. I quit, finally, so don't tell me that you can't. I've done it. I got into a lot of fights with local gangs. Really got myself into some shit. But I was actually doing something under bridges, you know. I kind of figured out that not only were we trying to prove it to everybody else, we were trying to prove it to ourselves. I guess I'm sort of like Seishirou in a way. Maybe people who have any shadow-or-whatever in to the whole violence thing have a really messed up side like that. You know, liking pain for some reason. I don't know. Pretty deep, huh?"

"_You _denying that you have emotions is sort of like a boulder trying to convince itself that it can swim."

"Wow, thanks."

"No problem. Well, you _do_ think much more than people think that you do." _It's a pretty obvious thing to realize, Kamui, but you're still young. At least you're trying. You remind me of me in some ways when I was your age. Oh, god, please… don't turn out like me…_

"You noticed?"

"I have been watching." _Oh—shit. That sounds really bad. Cover it. Cover it._ "…you know, for signs of danger. Keeping you out of trouble. Protecting you like I'm supposed to."

"Thanks. Um, Subaru…"

"Yes?"

"There is something I need to tell you as well."


	9. Over the Top

_And I'd give up forever to touch you  
'Cause I know that you feel me somehow  
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be  
And I don't want to go home right now_

_And all I can taste is this moment  
And all I can breathe is your life  
'Cause sooner or later it's over  
I just don't want to miss you tonight_

_And I don't want the world to see me  
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand  
When everything's made to be broken  
I just want you to know who I am… (1)_

* * *

Subaru's heart caught.

"I'm a queer."

…_huh?_ "What?"

"I'm… I'm swishy. Queer. I swing both ways."

"Kamui, I already knew that."

"You did? How?"

_It's. Bloody. Obvious. _"I could tell. I wasn't sure about you liking women at first, but it was pretty obvious that you liked men."

Kamui buried his head in his hands and groaned. Subaru opened his eye. He was spending the vast majority of the conversation with it closed now; it felt ready to burst with strain.

"Um… is something wrong?"

"Do I act like that much of an uke?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Uke. It means… it's an obscure fandom term; otaku use it sometimes. It basically means that you're on bottom. The girl in the relationship. I—all right." Kamui sighed. "So a lot of the guys up north used to call me 'bitch' all the time. I thought it was because I had a pretty face and I was a runt, but they kept saying that I acted like a bitchy girl. I—all right, is that really how I act?"

"No. That isn't what tipped me off."

"Then what did?"

"I got a vibe. And it's pretty obvious that you're crushing on Fuuma, Kamui. Really obvious." Kamui shifted uncomfortably. Subaru swallowed and tried to mentally dissolve the lead in his stomach. "Or it was just a lucky guess." _Wishful guess._ "It's not because you act like a—whatever that word was—uke. I mean… maybe you do, but if you do, I do as well. Do you think I'm…?"

"Uke? Yes."

"You see, I think that's pretty immature." Subaru pulled a tissue out of the box and twisted it thoughtfully. "That's just stereotyping. It's like you're sentencing somebody to always be 'on top' or 'on bottom' based on how meek they are. Real relationships aren't like that all the time. Being—well, being on the receiving end of things doesn't make you weak at all. And it's just stupid to think that the quieter, less assertive ones are the submissive ones. Immature people think that. As far as that would relate to the bedroom is concerned, it just—quite frankly, it feels good to be in that position, and there's no shame in it."

"Could we NOT talk about that, PLEASE?" Kamui coughed and blew his nose once again. "And you have to admit that if you were hooked up with Seishirou, you'd be the bitch."

"That is just my case." Subaru sighed and threw the torn tissue into the trash. "And I find no shame in it. And as far as the dominant / submissive thing extends beyond the bedroom, well… I would want to be on the giving end sometimes in there too—" _Why the hell are you talking about this?_ Subaru went red. "—sorry. Just an example. It's more complicated than that, though. You can't just label people."

"Grow up. Yes, you can."

_You grow up. Ah, nine years of difference begins to become evident sometimes. It would be a minor hindrance._ "Do what you want. And if you can, you must admit that you, also, are on that end of the label. You know who you are. It's more complex than that. It's like…um…hold on… um…well… sort of—like you're associating being the 'girl' with being weak. I know a great many girls who are stronger than most men. You can't judge people by how they would act according to… well… I guess, society's definition of roles. My sister was as feminine as they come, and she was stronger than all of us combined. I mean, me and Seishirou… she really was stronger. It's not a downfall to be the way you and I are. Like, I mean, if you _did _act like a girl or something, which you don't. Uh… well… I'm no good at this. All right. It is immature to think that it is. A downfall, I mean. Uh."

"…whatever."

"Am I making a shred of sense?"

"Actually, you are. Thanks. I… I feel a lot better now."

"Really?"

"Yeah. And everything you said about being bi makes me feel better, too. It… well, I don't know how anybody would take it if they knew. Keiichi or Yuzuriha-chan or Aoki-san or Sora-san… I guess they'd get weirded out."

"They probably know too."

"It just isolated me from a lot of people up north. People… well, they're like… they say that they're cool with it if they find out, but they just distance themselves. They've got, like, this gut reaction or something that makes them back off."

"They can't help that."

"Yeah, well, whatever. I—I didn't tell anybody, I just… well, I wasn't even really aware of it at the time. I just felt different for some reason."

"Kamui, you _are_ different, and in far more drastic ways than just being bisexual. And you're not up north anymore. And you're not with the average people."

"So you don't think it's really off?"

"No, not at all. And even if it is, we're all off. We're the convention of the offs. Being 'off' isn't a bad thing, necessarily." Subaru thought for a moment and took a deep breath. _Now or never. Just go for it._ "Kamui, have you ever considered moving on?"

"What?"

"I mean… moving on from Fuuma. He's sort of a lost cause." _Liar._ _There's a glimmer of a chance that he'll last a few weeks._ "It would be the best for you. He's going to do nothing but hurt you, Kamui."

Kamui glared. "You know _nothing_ about Fuuma."

"Fuuma is gone."

"You—look, you won't let go of Seishirou, and that's who he really _is_—he's a monster—and _Fuuma_ is not the person who is hurting everybody. The _real_ Fuuma is different. You don't even start telling me how to move on—"

"What if I said that I was also trying to move on?"

"I would say, 'Congratulations, good job, now let me kill the bastard.'"

"You know how dead set against thinking that I could find another single person I was? Like, I mean, single for me, not single in general… Uh… never mind. Okay. Whatever. Perhaps still am? How I can't even get him off my mind to this day?"

"Yes."

"And you are the same way about Fuuma?"

"Yes. Well… there was... there was Kotori… but she's… I was going to have to choose…" Kamui concentrated on fiddling with the hem of his gown. "…You see, I sort of found out that I was bi when I got back here. I didn't know that I was when those guys up north were giving me flack. It must have scared me because of that insecurity thing—you know, like trying to prove that I have no emotions? And I didn't want them to think I was a flower—yeah, whatever. Anyway. I always had a crush on Kotori. And when I got back here… well, I realized that I was seeing Fuuma the same way, and it scared me. I wanted to be with both of them the same way."

"I see."

"All right, this is kind of dumb, but… Fuuma and I made a promise when I left years ago. He promised that if I protected Kotori, he would protect me. When I was little, that was just really comforting, you know, like brothers watch out for each other. He was… Fuuma was basically my _brother_. When I got back and saw him again, he _wasn't_. He was… _more_. It was so close to that, though, that it was almost like _incest_. I felt like we were all incestuous siblings, and I would be fine with that. I _wanted_ that. Oh my god—" Kamui buried his head in his hands. "I'm so fucked up."

"No, you're not."

"But Kotori and Fuuma were _real_ brother and sister, and neither saw the other in that way. So… it got really confusing." Kamui thought for a moment and looked out the window once again, still hunched over clawed hands. "I was going to have to choose. It… it made things weird for a while. I think they were both aware of it. But… you see, I don't know if Fuuma is gay or bi or whatever. I mean, yeah, he's been sleeping with Seishirou, but that's _my_ shadow—_look_. I—I was terrified that he'd think I was disgusting. Like if he knew, he would go away and think that I was sick. It would make our friendship really weird if he knew. But that would also make my decision easy, and I wouldn't hurt Fuuma that way. He—I guess I was vain to ever think that either liked me in return that way. I just assumed. Or hoped so hard. It's… sorry, that was kind of pointless."

"No, it's not." Subaru closed his eye and swallowed the metallic taste collecting at the back of his tongue. He feared that he was about to be violently sick in the wastepaper basket. _God damn you, Fuuma._ _Disappear. Just. Disappear._ He swallowed again and took a deep breath. _Courtesy.__Look generous. Look as though you really care about Fuuma. Don't be a selfish bastard. _"And how are you so sure that Fuuma is straight?"

"He's… he's _normal_. He's not like me."

"That's nonsense. People can be swishy and still be perfectly normal, and you know that."

"But… oh my god." Kamui buried his head in his waiting hands once again. "Kotori's dead! I killed her! And if Fuuma really is gone or straight or whatever, I'm all alone! I—I didn't ever want to feel this way about _anybody_! God damn it, I hate this! And if he knows I killed Kotori, he'll hate me or be weird or be hurt just by looking at me! I—god damn it, I love him so much." Kamui's breath caught. Subaru screwed his eyes shut in pain. "I'm so goddamned selfish."

Subaru slowly opened his good eye and took a deep breath. Kamui was working himself into a silent meltdown, shoulders wracking with the effort of biting back sobs and twisting the sheet hems into knots. _I'm going to be sick. I'm going to be sick—_"Why?"

Kamui hissed and tried to speak, was only able to make a high pitched whine that degraded into a low cry, and violently recoiled into the bed board—Subaru yelled "Kamui, your shoulder!"—when Subaru reached out for him. Pain shot through Subaru's stomach.

"…come on. Don't even start that." Subaru carefully reached for Kamui's hand and was finally allowed to take it. He sighed and stroked its back with his fingertips until it uncurled slightly. A bark of a sob broke through Kamui's teeth when the second he unclenched to attempt to control his breathing. "Please, not now. And not ever. But… we understand each other, Kamui. Look. We… we've both been hurt by the ones we love. It's like… rejects fending for themselves, looking for… argh… I see myself in you, and…" _I love you. I want to be with you. You're competing with Seishirou, and it's driving me insane. I don't know what to think anymore. I don't want to think. I don't know what to say. Please, say something. Please._

Kamui took a deep breath, steadied his voice, and swallowed and closed his eyes in a vague attempt at meditation. _Calm down. Please, calm down, Kamui. Focus on me right now. I'm right here. I can make you happy. _

"…what are you trying to say?" asked Kamui quietly.

"I… I think we were… maybe we were fated to be betrayed… and go through so much hell… so that we could join… still having doubts… and… well, maybe I'm starting to have hope for the future, for the first time in nine years, and I'm starting to wonder… you know… if we can heal together… and move on… and be happy… and we'll realize how right we might be for each other after all… and compare it to what we once thought was the only thing for us… and even if we both still have our guys on our minds all the time to the point that it almost cripples us we can get over the jealousy we'd have for each other and slowly help each other forget… I want to heal so badly, Kamui… I really do… and I want you to… heal…" Subaru swallowed. "Damn it, this really isn't going anywhere. Sorry. I'll start over."

Kamui's expression was degrading from confusion to shock and near terror. He blinked and mouthed Subaru's words to himself, thinking. Subaru smiled hopefully and took a deep breath. The adrenaline was surging and heightening his awareness of every moving molecule in the room to a maddening level. _Fight or flight. Fight. Fight. Don't run away._ "You're not elegant under shock, but you're still beautiful."

"…you're… not serious."

"…yeah." Subaru took a deep breath and waved. _Okay._ _Over the top._ _No turning back now. Just go for it._ "I've fallen for you, Shirou Kamui. I'm not a very good prize to offer, but at least… now you know. Wow. I'm really shaking."

Kamui stared. Subaru folded his hands nervously and tapped his fingers. His shoulders were shaking with the thrill. He was sure the pulse in his ears was going to explode out his eardrums and allow all of the tension to be sucked out of his skull.

"It's like… you know how I am about Seishirou? And I know how you are about Fuuma. It's… do you _really_ love him… Kamui? Are you sure it isn't just a bad crush?"

"It's not just a crush… I honestly don't know." Kamui sighed and buried his head in his hands. "I don't know anymore, Subaru. This is all driving me insane."

"Are you scared?"

"Terrified."

"So am I." Subaru cleared his throat. "I'm… really scared. But you're the first person since Seishirou who's made me want to take the dive. And that's saying something. That… that really is saying something. It made me sit up and pay attention. I'm not good with people or communicating at all. I don't like to get close to people. I don't trust them, quite frankly. I guess I've seen too much in my line of work. I always felt more comfortable around animals."

"Yeah, me too."

"So we understand. We can move on together." Subaru forced a timid smile. "We're… one and the same in a lot of ways, but you're not like me. You… you're not pathetic. You don't give in. I honestly don't know if it is selfish of me or not to offer this. I'll drag you down. The last thing in the world I want is for you to end up like me."

"Shut up!" Kamui seized the tissue box out of Subaru's lap and snatched a tissue one-handed. He blew his nose loudly. "I'm sick of your shit, Subaru. You are not pathetic. Don't ever let me hear you say that again."

"… and the last thing I want is your pity. So, if you don't feel the same for me, I don't want your affection. I know that I'm a pitiful person—"

"_Shut up_—"

"—At least respect me enough to tell the truth, please." _Actually, pity sex and blissful ignorance on my part would be nice._ Subaru took a deep breath and grasped the water glass with a shaking hand. He gulped the rest of the water. "Wow. It's hot in here."

Kamui laughed. Subaru smiled wanly and set the glass on the table. _Congratulations, you've made things weird now. You knew you never had a chance with him. Don't you look pathetic…_

"Well…uh… _Subaru_. Um. I don't know why you think you're pathetic. You've really helped me through a lot of stuff lately. I mean… you're more a source of strength than anything. Like… look. You were the person who got me to get out of my own head, remember?"

"Yes."

"And… well, that meant a lot to me. I don't know." Kamui took a deep breath and looked out the window. "I… I thought that you'd be weirded out by a bi guy. Like you said, you thought it was odd—but it made me really happy when you said that you wouldn't be."

"…what are you trying to say, Kamui?" _Please please please please please—_

"I feel the same way about you. I… I just thought that you were too infatuated with Seishirou to even look at me in the same way."

Time suspended. Subaru's stomach fell out. His mind blanked in shock and sunk behind a protective, viscous deluge, from root to crown, through which all outside movements were observed with maddening, acute awareness. Every slight movement of his fingers against the backs of his folded hands tickled. Every flicker of Kamui's hair and eyelashes in the zephyrs from the broken window stood as its own distinct action, and every faint movement of his chest as he tried to control his breathing seemed powerful and somehow profound. He was fixing his stare out the window and setting his jaw in defense, beginning to flush. Subaru blinked and stared out the window. The lights were flickering in the corner of his revealed eye, perspective made worse by the pain that was already building from strain.

The air was stifling.

……_oh my god._ _Oh. My. God. …Yes._ Subaru swallowed. Time snapped back. The lights stopped flickering. _YES. YES. YES. YES!_ Subaru grinned in relief and poured a new glass of water. "You… really mean that?"

"Yes."

"That's… that's great. Oh my god." Subaru gulped down the water and poured another glass. He laughed. Kamui looked up in shock. "I'm so happy. I… oh my god. Sorry."

"You're _laughing_."

"Yeah!"

"…I've never seen you really smile, Subaru." Kamui grinned sheepishly back at him. "It makes me really happy."

"I haven't been this happy in nine years. Not even close. Oh my god, I'm so happy. I—sorry, I can't think of anything better to say."

"Don't worry about it."

"So, we're… we're together now? It's official?"

"…I…"

"It's all right. If… commitment is scary, I know. I'm terrified too. We can take it slowly, if you want." _Just don't run away. Please, don't run away because you're scared._

"…okay."

"Great. Great." Subaru took another gulp of water. "We'll take it slowly. We're just aware of it now, and that's enough. Just… whenever you feel comfortable about it, you know that I'm waiting. Oh, I'm so happy. I can't believe it. I'm finally going to move on."

"That's good. I'm glad, Subaru."

"I am too. Wow, I haven't felt this good in so long. I don't feel like myself. I feel giddy."

"I hope that you get very used to that feeling."

"Me too! Me too."

_Okay, now what?_ Kamui looked back out the window as though trying to think of how to say something. _Do we kiss or something? Dear god, that would be nice. He's… he's just shy; he'll open up soon. He'll open up to me. Only to me. And we'll feel comfortable with each other. Oh, god, I'm so happy. I can't believe it. I'm happy._

"Do you want to kiss or something?"

_YES. YES._ "Um… sure. That would be nice."

"…okay."

"Yeah."

They stared at each other for a moment. Kamui coughed and looked back out the window.

"Right… so… um…"

"…uh…"

"Oh, for god's sake." Kamui stared at Subaru and exhaled suddenly through his nose. He set his jaw as though he were facing an opponent, seized the back of Subaru's head by folds of bandage, and pressed his closed lips into Subaru's for a brief moment before snapping away as though dislodging himself after delivering a strike. Subaru blinked and shook his head suddenly to keep giddy fuzz from exploding in his brain.

"…that wasn't a kiss."

"…have you ever done this before?"

"No."

"Oh."

"…oh, fine." Subaru leaned over Kamui, edging the smaller boy's open back into the pillows while taking care to cradle the injured shoulder with his hand, licked his lips, and tentatively ran his shaking fingers lightly down Kamui's temple and jaw-line. He took a shaking breath. Kamui was clenching his good fist over his lap and shaking just as badly, but squaring his shoulders and staring at Subaru as though, once again, summoning his courage. He swallowed and licked his lips. Subaru smiled nervously.

"I'm really nervous."

"…yeah, me too."

"I can tell."

Kamui laughed softly. Subaru grinned and ran the backs of his fingers down Kamui's cheek while gently raking the fiberglass mesh of Kamui's cast with his nails. _Oh my god, that's your real smile. It's so beautiful, Kamui, and it's for me. For me. For me. Mine. All mine. _My _Kamui._ MY _Kamui._ _You're _mine—

"You're kind of creeping me out looking at me like that."

Kamui's breathing was growing shallow. Subaru licked his lips again and traced his fingertips back over Kamui's ear and down the hollow behind. "Sorry. You're just so beautiful."

"All right, now you're being a fruit."

"Thank you so much. You're so romantic." Subaru smiled; Kamui was flushing badly and glaring stubbornly back in mock challenge, made rather more preposterous by the fact that his eyes were glassing over with arousal. Subaru felt himself starting to crack up. Kamui finally snorted and grinned at him. Molten lead surged through Subaru's lower abdomen as he broke and started chuckling. _Laughter is arousing. This is—amazingly new, nobody ever tells you that. Oh my god. We're making a mockery of this, and it's turning me on. We're so screwed up. God, _that's _arousing too—_

"You going to do this or not?" Kamui asked breathlessly. "You're really torturing me."

"Sorry. I guess I'm just the girl in this relationship. You know, foreplay."

"Damn straight you are. You know your place."

Subaru laughed silently and moved his fingertips down Kamui's neck.

"…_Jesus Christ_, Subaru. Come on."

"Right. Okay. Here we go."

"Good."

"Good. Okay."

Subaru took a suspended breath, closed his eye, and lightly pressed his parted lips into Kamui's. He shifted Kamui's shoulder to rest on the underside of his forearm, the fiberglass mesh rasping white-raw scratches down the sensitive skin and pushing the hem of the hospital gown over the back of his arm. He stroked any bare skin he could reach with fingertips around the padded lip of the cast and the support bars holding it in place close to Kamui's spine. Kamui relaxed against the cradle and pulled Subaru's arm and weight with him into the pillows, but did not open his lips in response. Subaru lapped the part in Kamui's lips and kneaded the back of his head in encouragement, spiraling tendrils of hair around his fingers and massaging the skin through the roots. _Come on, don't make me look like the aggressive one._ He sucked Kamui's mouth, drawing all of the air into the back of his throat to create a vacuum. _Air._ _Air— It's all right, Kamui. This isn't bad—oh, god, yes, god, yes… further, open further… deeper… so warm… your tongue feels so good. Oh my god. It's like a cushion. Pressure. You're controlling that pressure, you're making it move—against my tongue—oh my god. Jaw. Movement. The muscles in your jaw, everything—moving—so perfect. You're eating me alive. You're trying to eat me. I'll devour you. I'll—see, I can suck just as hard. Wet. Slimy?—no, wet, wet. Yes, slimy, whatever. So, this is what this feels like. It's much fuller than I was expecting… argk… easy, love, easy—_

They broke away and gasped. Subaru licked his lips nervously and took a deep breath, noticing with vague satisfaction that Kamui was in the same shaky state as he was. He gave Kamui an open-mouthed smile, still breathing heavily.

"…damn. You almost choked me," said Kamui.

"I did? I thought that you were about to shove my tongue back down my throat."

"You were _inhaling_ my tongue. I didn't know that was physically possible."

"Oh, um. Well. I am an onmyouji. I'm magical."

Kamui looked up at Subaru, still flushed and breathless, and threw a wadded tissue at his nose. "Shut up."

Subaru smiled through breathing and threw the tissue into the trash. "Sorry. Was it really that bad?"

"_Bad_? What gave you the idea that was bad? That was… _really_ nice."

"Oh, good. I agree." Subaru swallowed and took a gasping breath. "We'll get better."

"…want to try again?"

"Sure."

Kamui swallowed and leaned forward with more confidence, head tilted and still gasping through barely-parted lips. Subaru leaned into his short, hot bursts of breath, and stopped. He vaguely sensed the approach of distressed Dragons of Heaven beyond the wall, in an alien world that he now realized was the one in which his mundane life took place. The microcosm of the hospital room dissolved. Both he and Kamui extended their awareness beyond the room.

"…Sora and Arashi are coming," said Kamui.

"I know." …_oh, perfect—_

_

* * *

_

(1) Goo Goo Dolls, "Iris"


	10. Playing the Angel

Warning: This chapter contains relatively explicit yaoi (male X male) content and description of rape. Do not read if this bothers you.

_

* * *

_

"…_how much longer do you plan to drag this game out?"_

"_Which 'game'?"_

"_You know exactly what I am talking about. Don't even try to generalize this into neutrality. Really, it all boils down to the fact that you're a bitter man who just can't let go."_

"_Hm…"_

_

* * *

_

A tall, lanky young man robed in close-skirted black crashed into the shrine stairs and sobbed as his skull smashed onto the edge of one of the stone steps. He rolled his sore head over the rim of the step until his cheek flattened tolerably against the icy-wet stone. Lightning struck a tree across the street with a deafening crack and showered sparks and splinters over the shrine wall. He shrieked so harshly that no sound escaped his throat and curled up more tightly into his coat. Somebody had left the coat open; the textured cloth dragged against the stone and made it difficult to pull the material around his shoulders. He was too tired to lift his weight long enough to pull the cloth out from under his side. He pulled feebly against the friction holding his coat taut and bit his lip.

_Help. Help. Please, God, send somebody—please—anybody—_

_

* * *

_

"—_are you in?"_

"_If that is what you wish—"_

_

* * *

_

Blood was pooling in his mouth. He whimpered and shifted his face just enough to relieve the growing pressure on his jaw. At some point his jaw had been cracked and he had bitten his tongue so badly that he wasn't sure it was still attached. He spat out the blood and squeezed his eyes shut. Sleet was collecting on his black hair. He blinked in an attempt to clear the water off of his eyelashes. It only ran into his eyes.

He shifted his weight and barked through clenched teeth, then hissed and retched. Pain shot up his spine from the root of his backside every time he tried to twist his hips too sharply. He knew that he was bleeding down below and somehow badly damaged—badly _violated_—but had no recollection of what had happened. He rolled onto his back, winced, and rested the back of his skull on the concrete stair. His back was being aligned, finally. He sobbed and shook his head to clear his hair of the water that was weighting it into his feverish face, the latter of which the rain was cooling. His throat was raw from holding back a hysterical breakdown. The idea was tickling at the back of his dazed vertigo.

_Somebody—oh my god, where am I? Where—Kotori? Kotori?_ He scrabbled onto his hands and coughed at the protest his various wounds gave him. He spat more blood onto the concrete. The rain washed it into thin trails. _This is—I'm home, aren't I? Kotori, I'm home. I'm—_

_

* * *

_

_Fuuma stood at the roots of a gnarled tree sprawling over its own purple lake of light in a black dimension and stared at the loose, discarded body of a young girl as it drifted above him in the sakura blooms. Her eyes were dilated and bloodshot. Blood dripped onto his face from the gaping hole in her chest as the tree drew her further into its fold. What little he could still see of the little girl's face was a clear testament of her final moments—exhausted with pleading and terror, shrieking, calling for her parents, calling for anybody, begging for mercy, and merely hoping that somebody would snatch her from the nightmare into which she had stumbled and save her life._

_Fuuma brushed the blood off of his cheekbone and stared at the smear it left on the blade of his hand. It was already drying on his skin and turning sticky._

"…_you really are pathetic, old man."_

_The man in question stroked the bloodstained rag frog that was draped across his arm and smiled. "Thank you."_

_

* * *

_

He fell onto his side and dry-heaved into his hand, then took several deep breaths to prevent hyperventilation. The gore was sending his stomach into rebellion. He feebly pawed at his cheek to clear it of all evidence of the blood, then allowed his wrist to drop with exhaustion and rest against the side of his temple. He curled his hand into a cup as though trying to muffle the source of his splitting headache and clutched his head. His memories of the girl's murder, whoever she was, consisted of a heated haze of screams and watching a second tall, lanky, black-robed figure chase her down an alley. It was a dismantled, vivid, adrenaline-rushed picture show.

_Somebody, help._ _Somebody. Somebody—_

_

* * *

_

_The marble-eyed man always seemed amused._

_

* * *

_

"…somebody," he whispered to himself. He started to murmur into the heat within the folds of his coat. "Somebody, anybody, help me. Somebody. Somebody. Somebody. Somebody make me warm. I'm so cold. It's so cold out here, Kamui. Kamui. Kotori's—make me warm. I hurt so badly. Please, help me—somebody…"

_Who is Kamui? _

_

* * *

_

"_Let's make a bet."_

_

* * *

_

_Kamui is—my friend, right? He—he lives here, no, I live here. That's right. Kamui. I'm home. Somebody, take me inside. Father, mother, somebody. I'm hungry. I—soup, that would be nice. Soup, hot steam, blankets, just dissolving into blankets on the floor—I want to go home. I need sleep. I'll… I'll remember when I wake up. It's at the edge of my thoughts right now, like trying to hold sand—the harder I grasp—the more I lose—sandcastles—the beach—_

_Kamui, why are you crying? What's wrong?_

_

* * *

_

_A man was panting harshly and thrusting Fuuma into a Spartan mattress and thin, starched sheets, slamming his shoulder-blades and head into the headboard. There was a shattering stab of pain at each thrust, though the pain had felt good to him at the time and made him claw at the sheets and throw his head back while molten lead rushed through the core of his abdomen. He was fighting to control his ragged gasps to partake in the dominance battle of the sort the other man loved. Fuuma was doing perfectly—putting up the utmost resistance, presenting a worthy challenge, and finally breaking down. The other man could delude himself easily in his high-strung state. _

* * *

The boy screamed and curled into a knot.

* * *

_A slice of moonlight cut across the man's immaculate face from behind the drapes. Sweat dripped off of the man's neck and spattered on Fuuma's collar as he thrust—hard—into Fuuma's prostate, and stopped as Fuuma choked back a yell. The man panted and watched with rapidly twisting triumph as Fuuma squirmed for movement. He bit the calf resting on his shoulder._

"_Do you… want…"_

_Fuuma moaned and screwed his eyes shut, clenching the sheets into knots and twisting his head away while fighting to control his breathing. The man grinned open-mouthed through ragged gasps and leaned onto Fuuma's legs, flat, hot, slick stomach sliding against the back of his thighs, and ran bloody fingers against Fuuma's damp scalp and behind his ear, tracing streaks through the strands._

"…_ask nicely."_

* * *

"STOP!"

* * *

_Fuuma spat in his face._ _The man grinned and licked blood off of the blade of his hand._

"_You're… an amusing little doll…"_

_

* * *

_

"GET OUT! GET OUT!" The young man clawed at his face and covered the back of his head, burying his face in his arms. He clutched at his hair and screamed. "STOP IT! GO AWAY! GET OUT OF ME! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP!"

_

* * *

_

_Stars exploded behind his eyes as the man smashed his skull into the sleek, metal headboard again and leaned through his legs to yank his head up by the roots—_

_

* * *

_

"…go away… go away…go away… go away…"

_

* * *

_

_--thirsting on the blood that was starting to pool in his mouth—_

* * *

"…stop…. stop… _please…__please,_ stop… _stop… get out…STOP… STOP…_"

* * *

_--he vaguely remembered the black-haired man, sitting in a chair with Fuuma's chin resting on his crown, smashing his head up into his jaw when he had started—_something—_he didn't remember what, but did remember the calm, predatory continence the man maintained when he had turned around and forced Fuuma back into the wall. He was tall enough to have to tip Fuuma's jaw up to his level, a feeling to which Fuuma was not accustomed. The man had devoured the fresh blood then, too, lapping and sucking his mouth and returning after burst-gasps as though he was dying of thirst and drinking to his satisfaction._

_

* * *

_

"…EAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" He lashed onto his back and clawed at his face in disgust. "GOD DAMN IT, GET OFF! STOP IT! PLEASE! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! …AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Somebody yelled in the distance.

He curled onto his side and gasped, no longer trying to control his sobbing. His black-clad shoulders were quaking. He kept whispering broken, desperate pleas and mantras to anybody who cared to listen, anybody—somebody—who would help him. He squirmed and retched when he felt the responding pain in his rear. He was utterly disgusted with being in his own body. He cried and spat more blood onto the sidewalk, then retched and spat desperately when he felt a phantom tongue lapping in his mouth. There was nothing in his stomach to regurgitate. He hugged his black-clad legs and buried his face in his knees, basking in the warmth of his own body on his face contrasting with the cold, wet stone against his cheek. He was desperately trying to pool all of his identity and autonomy back to his chest.

He had no identity; therefore, he could summon no dignity. He couldn't remember his own name. What little could be sacred to him on the most primordial levels of self-possession was tainted. He curled more tightly and bit his kneecap, screwing his eyes shut. _I can think, can't I? Don't I live at this place?_ He took several deep breaths and tried to calm himself. _All right…_ _I have a name. If I remember my name, I'll remember who I am, won't I? Yeah… Oh, disgusting, there's blood running down my leg again—don't think on it. Do NOT think on it. Focus._ He shuddered and whimpered. _I have to get inside. I have to get warm and dry. I have to get—somewhere—it's so cold out here. I'm getting sick. I'm running a fever. My face is on fire. Somebody—_

He numbly noted that somebody was hopping—hopping, was that normal?—yes, hopping—over the rooftops across the street. The person landed neatly in the yard out of the range of his vision. He curled defensively. _Somebody?__Don't touch me. Get away from me—ergh, help._ He shuddered and screwed his eyes shut as somebody ran toward him over the wet grass, screaming something. _Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Don't—_

"FUUMA! FUUUMA! HOLD ON! I'M COMING!"

…'_Fuuma'?_

_

* * *

_

"…_but today, I will let you go."_

_

* * *

_

"Kanoe is not going to be happy about this."

"Oh, I'm sure she won't be." Yuuto poured tea and watched the video footage from the security cameras CLAMP Campus had set up around Togakushi Shrine. The camera was at an odd caddy-corner angle to the shrine steps and the long, dark-robed man that intermittently thrashed or flopped onto his other side or his back. "He's pretty far off his rocker, I'd say, bloody screaming at the top of his lungs like he is. It's time to put Monou Fuuma in the happy farm." Yuuto set his mug and saucer on the table and glanced up into his brain, amused, and collapsed onto the flat of his hand. "…then again, I think every adolescent belongs in the happy farm. I as sure as hell belonged there when I was his age."

"Don't you mean 'Kamui'?"

"No, I mean who I said. But 'Kamui' is probably also screaming at the top of his lungs somewhere, though that's more of a normal occurrence for that young man. I'm sure CLAMP Campus has alerted the Dragons of Heaven about this already. It's pretty much a given that Kamui will show up very soon."

"Should we do something?"

"Why?"

"…that's a good question."

"There are no bad ones." Yuuto stirred his tea with the tip of his spoon, preoccupied with some vestige of thought, and started laughing. Satsuki glanced at him.

"What?"

" '_You're_ _kind of creeping me out looking at me like that.'_ "

A smile cracked across Satsuki's face--a shutterbox-flicker at which Yuuto smiled, before she suppressed it and dabbed at some imaginary crumbs at the corner of her mouth with a napkin. Yuuto almost snapped his fingers in half-victory, half-loss to keep from grasping at the illusive smile before its essence drifted past. His fingers subconsciously curled on the tabletop. He leaned coquettishly on the flat of his hand and steered the lemon slice across the top of his tea with his spoon.

" '_You_ _going to do this or not? You're really torturing me.'_ "

"Yuuto, shut up."

"Am I the girl in this relationship? Do you consider this too much foreplay?--"

"_We don't have_ a relationship," Satsuki said rapidly, realizing the initial volume of her voice and smoothing off into her usual calm. She finished fumbling with cleaning her glasses on her green shorts and pushed the lenses back over her eyes. Beneath her cool, detached, placid expression, Yuuto could tell that she was rattled. _Good. This is good, darling. You protest too much._ "There's nothing between us, Yuuto."

"I was just joking. You seem to protest too strongly."

"Fifty percent of joking is what people are afraid to say." She stared Yuuto straight in the eyes, clearly annoyed. "I don't want you making assumptions or getting used to ideas that have no weight. I will make this clear: you are my comrade, nothing more."

"Not even a friend?"

Something metallic lanced through Yuuto's stomach. _Why the hell are you worrying? Oh my god, she means it. No—she just—I saw something that was really there. I'm not deluding myself._ _Calm down, old boy._ Yuuto's fought to keep all shades of sadness out of his smile and closed his eyes. He slurped from his cup in a vain attempt to wash the metallic taste out of his saliva. Behind Satsuki, the screen showed a flickering, rain-washed picture of the abandoned shrine steps. The rain was beating the blood-patch into dilute strings running with the forming water-flows.

"I don't make friends with humans."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yuuto, I'm not in the mood for this."

"Well, I gain a lot of pleasure from your company."

"_Your_ position is well known."

_Ouch._ Yuuto blinked and sat back in his chair, resting his saucer on the crook of his knee. He twitched the corners of his mouth back into an imitation a smile. He had given up on forcing his usual happiness back into his brown eyes. They were too open for any attempt to have a chance.

"Do you think I am pathetic?"

Satsuki pretended to be preoccupied with the screen. Yuuto maintained a sad smile and fished a sugar cube out of the copper dish.

"Do you?"

"What?"

_You heard me. Stop it._ "Do you think I am pathetic?"

Satsuki sighed and removed her glasses to busy herself with cleaning them once again. "I don't know, Yuuto."

"…you don't know." _Just keep twisting, love. Eventually my heart will be so wrapped around the blade that you'll be able to yank it straight out._

"_No_, that's—no, I don't. I don't, Yuuto." Satsuki stared at him again. "I am paying you the ultimate respect by telling you the truth. I can't blame you for your human inclinations. You are wired to feel this way about other humans."

"You're not a computer, Satsuki-chan."

"I know this."

"Why don't you show your human inclinations? Do you think that makes you pathetic?"

"I just _don't have them_, Yuuto. I'm sorry."

"…you don't have them."

"No, I don't. I've never felt any sexual urges or anything of the sort toward anything. I'm completely cold toward others. I know that others have those inclinations, but I do not. I just don't _feel_ that way."

"Hm…" Yuuto shrugged and stared out into space. Satsuki furrowed her fine eyebrows and replaced her glasses over the bridge of her nose.

"What's so funny?"

"Do you really believe any of that nonsense, or do you say it because you want to look cool?"

Satsuki arched her eyebrows. Yuuto relaxed his shoulders and watched her.

"…I beg your pardon?"

"Do you really believe that nonsense? Quite frankly, that's a crock of shit. I thought higher of you than that, Satsuki-chan."

"_What?_"

"What, you don't see right through that?" Yuuto warped the traces of sadness in his smile into sardonicism and set his saucer on the table. He pushed his hands into his pockets and leaned back. "It's so trendy nowadays for all of these adolescents to say that they're 'wired that way' and that they don't feel anything resembling physical attraction because they want to be special and different, _weird_, I guess, but if anything they're the ones with the strongest erotic sides of all. Well, the ones who weren't damaged in some way so that they convinced themselves that they are 'wired' in such a null way as a form of genuine suppression."

"You're displaying a rather closed mentality on this subject yourself."

"Really? Well, I don't think you're all that different after all, Satsuki-chan."

Satsuki grimaced and stood. "I have some things to which to attend. I don't have time to argue on this. You, like all humans, will believe what you want to believe."

"As will you."

Satsuki's expression had already smoothed back into its placid state. She glanced at Yuuto with outward indifference, tinged by annoyance, and walked off.

"You would be surprised at what the mind can achieve."

"So you're admitting that you _have_ something _there_ you're trying to conquer and suppress?" he called to her back, twisting around in his seat. "As in _you're wrong, I'm right_?"

"I will talk to you later."

"…fine." Yuuto sighed and turned back to the video feed of the rain-washed shrine from which all of the blood had been washed. He wasn't sure whether he should feel relieved or sick, though on an intellectual level he was positive that he was correct.

_She wouldn't be flustered if you weren't. She's human. You might have scared her off, but she's a human. BEAST's been jealous too. Come on, that has to be a sign of something. Even if she sees me as another machine, it's still something… we're the same type of machine, right? Yeah, she might go for that… hopefully… _

"…I _so_ just won that argument…"

* * *

_This has got to be the longest fucking day of my life._

Kamui took another drag of his cigarette and allowed his wrist to drop loosely over his knee. He knocked ashes off of the roll and concentrated on their wafting descent to a patch of the concrete roof shadowed by his leg. The fingertips of his opposite hand were resting lightly on the package of Subaru's stolen Mild Sevens. He was unable to move the latter arm since it was splinted at an angle forward from his shoulder, and so chose a cross-legged sitting position that would allow him to rest lightly on his forearm without jarring his injury. He had long since removed his hospital gown and was currently shirtless and enjoying the cool damp that followed the storm on the hospital roof, leaning against the foundation support for the stairwell. His various earlier injuries and the scars therein involved were all evident; he still had a gauze patch over the exit wound through his stomach for which the white medical tape was beginning to curl off. The violet city-sky was beginning to tinge with the yellow-white of dawn.

_Fucked._ _Over. Fucked. Over. Oh my god. This is so fucked up. Now what the hell am I going to do?_ Kamui covered his eyes with the cigarette still clamped between his fingers and clutched at his temples. A few ashes were knocked onto his legs. _Oh my god. Fuuma's strapped to a gurney and fucking screams every time I try to touch him. Subaru's being a complete bitch. Yuzuriha's crying. Keiichi's being weird. Everybody sucks. I made out with Subaru. I _made out _with Subaru. Oh my fucking god. What the hell was I thinking? _

Kamui traced his pinky over his lips thoughtfully and clenched the sides of his head together more tightly. _Why the hell did that happen tonight? God, Shirou, where the hell was your _head_? He's just using you to drown out Seishirou—that bastard. That fucking bastard. I'm going to kill him. I'm going to rip his eyes out. I'm going to rip his dick off and shove it down his throat. Subaru, why the hell do you love him? I can't keep that stupid promise to you. I'm going to have to kill him myself. No—no, stop it._ Kamui dropped his hand and dragged on the cigarette. _Subaru still has the right to kill him. Don't be a selfish prick. _

_Subaru…_

"…oh my _goooood_…" Kamui moaned and buried his head in his hand again. "What the hell did I get myself into?" he muttered to himself. "I should have waited… I _should not have done that…_ it's not fair…"

"Whatever it was, life is too short for regret and waiting."

Kamui scrabbled to his feet and snubbed the cigarette out on the flat of the stairwell foundation. As soon as he had been snapped out of his thoughts by the voice, he had realized who was standing on the east side of the stairwell foundation and who was currently making his way around the concrete platform. Kamui's mind went white with rage. The early blinding-white of dawn glared around the man and rolled about his figure as he walked around toward Kamui, shifting and making him seem like some sort of black mirage.

Kamui clenched his good fist and seethed.

"Smoking is bad for you." Seishirou picked up the abandoned package of Mild Sevens by Kamui's feet. Amid the raw dissociation of rage in Kamui's head he grasped a passing, flash-fantasy of kicking Seishirou square in the jaw, but the man straightened before he had a chance to act. The latter pulled a cigarette out of the package.

"Do you have a light?"

Kamui socked Seishirou under the jaw. Seishirou fell back and scrabbled on the edge of the platform as Kamui kicked him in the stomach and smashed his spine back into the concrete. He drove his heel into the older man's abdomen and ground his back into the wall, barely noting as a flash-awareness that he was covering his bleeding mouth and frantically gesturing for Kamui to stop, sunglasses falling askew over his nose, then concentrated on grinding the knots of his vertebrae into powder against the barrier. He lunged forward and smashed Seishirou's head back into the edge of the block with his knee. Seishirou screamed. His sunglasses jumped to the edge of his nose. Kamui grasped a handful of black hair and smashed his head repeatedly into the edge of the concrete.

"STOP—!"

"YOU—FUCKING—BASTARD—BASTARD—BASTARD—BASTARD—BASTARD—BASTARD—"

Kamui felt Seishirou spatter blood over his hand and choke on the blood that was dripping down his throat, screamed, and shoved Seishirou's head into the concrete one final time before jumping back and hurling energy at the man's abdomen. Seishirou spat a gratuitous amount of blood upon impact and fell on his side, curling and coughing pitifully. He was gasping and clutching his stomach and mouth. The lenses of his glasses had shattered. Kamui looked him over lazily and sidestepped in a semi-circle around him, repulsed.

"I'm not done with you yet."

Seishirou spat more blood onto the ground and wheezed. Kamui kicked him in the side.

"Worm. Why the hell aren't you fighting back?"

Seishirou choked and gasped several times. "…I didn't come here to fight you. I came to… talk."

"Bullshit! Fine, don't think I'll go easy on you! That was all for _Subaru_! I haven't even _started_ on Fuuma yet!" Seishirou groaned. Kamui clenched his good fist, held his injured arm rigid, and gritted his teeth. He was starting to tear up. _Oh my god, don't start crying now. You stupid pansy. STOP IT._ "You bastard! Do you know what you did to him? He won't even let me touch him without him going insane and freaking out and crying and begging and—"

"You love him more, don't you?"

"WHAT?"

"…let us talk." Seishirou groaned and slowly started to pull himself up, wincing and gasping with protesting stabs of pain from his abdomen. He was still covering his bloody mouth and straightening his jagged sunglasses frames back over his eyes, useless though they were. Kamui clenched his fist tighter and kicked Seishirou under the jaw again. He felt teeth smash under his foot and grinned, gasping. Through tear-blurred vision he saw that his bare foot was smeared red. He shook his head vigorously and fought to keep some loose control over his already badly disassociated, adrenaline-infused awareness. He was vaguely aware that he was dangerously close to snapping and either ripping Seishirou's head clean off, or collapsing into a ball and screaming his own head off. He staggered backwards in a daze and shook his head, a motion as involuntary as the twitching spasms. His shoulder started to throb; Kamui dully acknowledged that he had probably rebroken it during his assault, but was well beyond the point of caring about such mundane details.

"…what?" he snapped. His head was buzzing. His muscles were loose and eager to continue assault. "What the hell do you have to say? I can't even stand to look at you right now. Your voice sickens me. Fucking _hurry up or I'll_—"

"I'm not your enemy."

"That's b—"

"I'm asking you to hear me out." Seishirou curled back onto his side to allow the blood to run out of his mouth and ran his fingertip gingerly across broken teeth. He grimaced and coughed. "…if you don't like what you hear, you can kill me."

Kamui gritted his teeth and growled. He was trying to control his breathing and heart rate to something lower than a manic level. He closed his eyes. _He set up a null-barrier. That's why Subaru wasn't up here before I even noticed him. Subaru… god damn it, Subaru, you better be grateful for this…_

"I don't have the right to kill you. That right belongs to my best friend."

"So he's just a friend now?"

"SHUT UP! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU KNOW?"

"Obviously enough to know that." Seishirou spat blood and tooth fragments and gave Kamui a crooked, mangled smile. "Don't give me that look. I always watch my Sumeragi. I always know when he's in some sort of… state of high emotion…"

"You fucking voyeurist."

"No, you didn't get all the way to home plate. Technically, I can't be—"

Seishirou flinched. Kamui had shifted his foot back as though seconds from kicking him under the jaw again. Kamui froze.

"…what's your point?"

"Everything Subaru knows about me is a lie."

"…what the hell?"

"Have you ever been willing to take guilt for the crimes somebody close to you committed while they weren't themselves so that they could live without that burden of guilt, even if they loathed you forever?"

Kamui froze. _Kotori—_ "…the hell is your point?"

"I am sure Subaru has told you his story, the story about the three of us seven years ago—well, me, Subaru, and Hokuto."

"…he told me very little."

"Subaru thinks that I betrayed him and murdered his twin sister on the one-year anniversary of our meeting. It's a long story—I fabricated an elaborate yarn about a sakura tree and a bet somewhere along in there—but it was Subaru himself who killed Hokuto. He was under a spell. It's a long story."

Kamui stared at Seishirou. Seishirou was low staring across the roof, still resting on his side. He shifted his head to alleviate the odd pressure from his sunglasses frames against the side of his skull; they had been knocked that badly askew.

"…I altered his memory. It would be a plausible story for him to believe, since by heritage I am the Sakurazukamori and by nature an illusion master. I hid it from them for so long. I hated that damned title. I never acted upon it, but when it came time to convince Subaru that I was indeed the villain, I took on the mantle and started murdering so that he would believe that I was the ruthless assassin I showed him in his false memories. Everything in my life since then has been dedicated to making that illusion a reality so that Subaru would never have to face his guilt."

"That's such a load of shit."

"Why are you twitching so much? Are you afraid of ending up like me?"

"I'd gladly do it for him! Shut the fuck up! I don't care if he hates me forever, I'll tell him I murdered Kotori and murdered everybody and mauled and mangled and that I raped—HEY." Kamui kicked Seishirou into the wall. Seishirou yelled. "You fucking LIAR. That makes no sense at all! Why did you rape Fuuma? That has _nothing_ to do with Subaru!"

"To bring him back to you."

"BULLSHIT!"

"Listen! I'm not done yet. Please, give me a chance to finish." Seishirou weakly held up his hand and gave another crooked, sad smile. Kamui held himself back. "If you are so thoroughly convinced that even when I tell you the truth it can't be so, I have done a good job with my ruse. I am satisfied. Nothing will break it. This is a testimony to my dedication."

"Oh _shut up_."

"We're one of a kind in this sense, Kamui."

"_Shut up._ Make your point NOW. All right, if all of this shit is true and you care about Subaru never finding out _that much_, why the hell are you telling me now? And what about Fuuma?"

"I wanted to end the war and give Fuuma back to you in thanks for all you have done for Subaru."

"…right."

"Listen, I grew up. I was twenty-five when I started all of this nonsense. Twenty-five and in love, at any rate; that constitutes a very stupid and rash young man. I learned the long way that I've done so much more damage with all of this nonsense, but I can't go back. You don't believe me, Subaru won't believe me, nobody will. And they shouldn't. I've taken every measure to make sure that nobody would. I—well, in the same way that nobody likes to be told 'you'll understand when you're older' at a young age, I went to lengths to make sure that when I became older and 'lost my clarity' I wouldn't be able to change my mind. But now I see that I now _have_ that clarity. I did a good job of screwing myself and everybody over, permanently. I don't want you to make the same mistake, Kamui. It's not fair to you or Fuuma. In the long run, the truth will set you free, but first, it will hurt like hell. Your intentions are noble, but in the end, they cause a lot of needless pain. The most pleasant path isn't by default the wrong one. You have nothing to prove."

The adrenaline buzz in Kamui's head was wearing off. He warily sat down aside Seishirou on the platform and watched him from the corners of his eyes, squinting in the glaring dawn sunlight. Last night's clouds were burning off. His shoulder was giving him hell now.

"…and Fuuma? Why were you such a complete asshole to him? Do you know how fucked up he is now?"

"I am sorry that I kissed him in your presence. It didn't mean anything on either party's part. Yes, the… brutality (Seishirou winced, evidently in self-disgust), all of that was to maintain the façade. I had to be an asshole in front of you so that you wouldn't raise any suspicions of my true intentions to Subaru. If I could have awoken him… gently, I would have, and with the utmost and most professional respect. I've become rather accustomed to the concept of having to put a patient through momentary hell for the patient's good in the long run. It's not pleasant, but it has to be done. It is a long story, but Subaru has filled you in on how orgasms fit into this entire thing, I assume."

Kamui grimaced. "…they… woke him up."

"Well, when Subaru told you that he was 'possessed' by your shadow, he painted an inaccurate analogy. It's not possession so much as _synchronization_. Fuuma is the person closest to your heart, isn't he?"

"…I don't know."

"Only somebody that close could synchronize with your deepest inverse shadow."

"…what about all of the 'twin star' stuff?"

"Who knows? Maybe an inaccuracy in the legend—there are a surprising number of those in any fables and prophesies; things are usually far more left to human will than you would assume—but in a sense, you 'chose' Fuuma for this."

"But what about Kotori?"

"…why do you think she had to die? To prevent confusion?"

"But Monou-san—Monou Kyogo, that's Fuuma's dad—knew—"

"He'd watched you two grow up, I suppose. Or you were fated to fall in love, something like that. In any case, Fuuma could only synchronize with you if your hearts were that close."

"Then why not—"

"—earlier? I don't know. Maybe the moment at which you chose was the moment at which you chose to open your heart to the people you had been forcing away."

Kamui went silent. Seishirou tongued his broken eyetooth and coughed.

"…Kotori was acting really weird before she died," Kamui said quietly.

"Insane? Morbid?"

"…yes."

"Hm…"

"…I… had opened to Kotori before I opened to Fuuma because… for some reason, he was more intimidating, I guess. I don't know. I thought he'd think I was queer."

"Aren't you?"

"He's not. He can't be. He's too normal. And even if he was, he wouldn't look at me."

"I've heard all of this." Seishirou laughed weakly and groaned at the lance his abdominal muscles gave him in response. "Well, at least I've gotten you to listen to me."

"I as sure as hell don't trust you any more than I did."

"I know. You're a smart boy. You don't trust too easily. If I were you, I wouldn't trust me either."

"And I was keeping them away to keep them safe, you know. Oh my god." Kamui buried his head in his good hand. _Why the hell am I even listening to this guy? Come on, Shirou, it's Sakurazuka Seishirou. Why the hell do you listen to a word he says? Maybe—well, it's plausible—NO. Maybe—NO. Stop it. Don't let it worry you—it's all lies—it doesn't all fit right—_ "All of this is my fault. God damn it, this all happened because I opened up to them. I was right to keep them away. I got weak and broke down. I just… I love them so much. I'm not as strong and selfless as everybody thinks I am. I'm—I'm like Subaru, we talked about this, I mean, we're both selfish in the sense that we only care about ourselves and the ones closest to us. I'm not a good person. I'm really only fighting for Fuuma. No, I… well, yeah, I care about everybody else _so much_, but I know I wouldn't go the distance for them I would for Fuuma. Not nearly. I'm so fucked up. I'm not strong enough to do what you're doing. And—what the hell? I don't trust you anyway, but, if I did… I'm just saying… the hell?" Kamui looked up sharply. "Why the _hell_ am I pouring all of this shit out to _you_?"

"Maybe because we understand each other."

_SHUT UP. I don't want to turn out like you. I'm not strong enough to handle it. STOP—he's LYING. But I still don't… even if he is, I don't want to end up like him… I can't take Fuuma hating me like that._ "…oh my god, what do I do about Subaru?"

"Do you love him?"

"_Yes_, but… I don't know. I don't know anything." Kamui clutched his head again. "I'm so fucked up. I feel like I'm cheating him. He loves you. I can't love him like you do right now. I thought I could learn to—I mean, that's like what he was saying, he wanted us to move on—but I don't. Now Fuuma's back, and… oh my god, this is so messed up."

"I see."

"And _why the hell am I talking to you?_" Kamui jumped up and kicked Seishirou in the flank once again, but it was weaker than before. "Something about your story's not right. It sounds like a complete load of shit you thought up on your way over here."

"Life is painful and weird, truth is stranger than fiction, love makes idiots of rational men—take it any way that you want. There are many things I didn't tell you that would fill in some gaps, but I've told you what you need to know."

"_Why?_ If you're so hell-bent on keeping this huge illusion, why the hell are you telling me?"

"You're not going to tell Subaru, are you?"

"…I…"

"Please, don't. Trust me, there's no going back. You'll make things worse. And I thought I told you. I don't want you to make the same mistake. And… as a debt of gratitude for all you have done for Subaru, I want to point you in the right direction, even if it hurts him. I think we had that same bit of selfishness. I mean, come on—murdering just to keep your loved one out of trauma? We're one and the same in a lot of ways. And then again, I can be a very possessive and jealous man. Of course, I have darker intentions about breaking you and Subaru up, selfish as it is, but I can ignore those so long as I channel my pure intentions to the fore." Seishirou closed his eyes and rested the side of his head on a patch of concrete that was shattered with shards of face-up, oil-brown glass. "If you ever feel like talking, or if you ever start to trust me whatsoever, come visit. I run Sakurazuka Veterinary Hospital in Shinjuku-Kabukicho."


	11. Martyr

It had taken a considerable amount of effort to fend Kamui off of Fuuma long enough to convince him that Sorata and Arashi should be the ones to carry the latter back to the hospital to prevent Kamui from ripping his injuries anew. Kamui's blind fervency had been frightening. The pair, who had been in the CLAMP Campus control room when the satellite camera had found Fuuma, had altered Kamui to Fuuma's location and state while he was in the middle of what seemed like an awkward and almost guilty conversation with Subaru. The shiftless atmosphere in the room had shattered at odd angles to itself with their arrival; Kamui had run out of the room with several nervous, jerking backwards glances at Subaru, while the latter's face did not move a muscle for the seemingly suspended, tentative time that Arashi and Sorata were rooted to the spot in confusion. Arashi remembered seeing the first flashes of—anger, jealousy, something negative—flicker across Subaru's face and twitch his jaw muscles as she and Sorata had run back out the door.

_Subaru's mad about something._ Arashi half-listened to the doctors asked the same questions of her they had of all the Dragons of Heaven prior, and observed one of the numerous plaques adorning the office wall with the back of her mind. _He doesn't seem like the fickle sort of person who would give up on that horrible man so easily—even if he is horrible. It's not a good thing, but… no, they're not—_

"—Kishuu-san, did you hear me?"

"—I'm sorry. What?"

"Is Monou Fuuma homosexual or engaged in any sort of active homosexual activity?"

"…I beg your pardon?"

"Is he gay?" A mildly distasteful look flinched across the doctor's features, though he kept his continence within the limits of being smooth and clinical. "Does he—does he have a boyfriend? Is he sexually active?"

_What on earth?_ "Why do you ask such a question?"

"We need to discern whether or not he was raped." Arashi furrowed her eyebrows in momentary thought and frowned after she had given the sentence a few moments to register. _Oh, lovely._ "He's… been roughly treated in that way, and given his amnesia, we need to know whether or not the rape was part of the attack, or whether it occurred beforehand. I know it's a very embarrassing topic, but we need to know. This isn't the time to worry about upholding secrecy. We need to know so that we can help him."

"I honestly have no idea." _Even though he gives off the aura of having slept with the entire block, he's still kind of… cold. Untouchable. Sterile._ _Like he'd sleep with anybody and not be changed._ _That sort of distant._ "I am sorry, but I am not that familiar with him. You should talk to Shirou Kamui."

The doctor sighed and shook his head. "…already did. As soon as I asked him anything even leaning in that direction, he smashed a table and stormed out of the room in a fit. We had to repatch his shoulder… again."

_Typical._ "Well, he is the only one who would know." Arashi folded her ankles and subconsciously smoothed her indigo skirts, loosely holding the fabric aside her thigh. "If you want, I could try to talk to him. I cannot make any guarantees, though."

* * *

"I don't fucking know."

"Kamui, come on—"

"I said _I don't fucking KNOW_, all right? Do you want me to make something up?"

"No, but…"

Kamui glared up at Arashi and Sorata from his perch sitting astride one of the plastic hospital chairs, chin resting on his folded hands atop the backrest. He seemed to be deliberately keeping his hair tossed over his eyes in order to look more intimidating and dramatic. Subaru, sitting beside Kamui and watching him, would intermittently make halfhearted motions toward touching Kamui's arm, but would retract his hand as soon as he felt that it was close enough to be sensed. They were in Fuuma's room, where Fuuma was in the sort of still sleep that belongs to the pained and where Kamui had been maintaining a sleepless vigil most of the night. While the former had subdued thrashing and muffled rambling fits through his splinted jaw and a general stupor of staring at the ceiling, the latter had spent a good portion of the night repeatedly snapping at doctors and making threats should they do anything harmful to Fuuma or handle him too roughly. He had stopped protesting to strapping Fuuma to the bed and keeping him on calming medications since Arashi had reminded him that it was only to keep Fuuma from hurting himself that the doctors were doing all of this. Before that point, few doctors were willing to even try venturing into the room with so much as a syringe.

That was at about four thirty in the morning. As soon as Arashi and Kamui had their brief chat, Kamui had roughly snapped at the doctors to do as they would and left to sulk on the roof. When Yuzuriha had checked on him after sunrise she reported that he was disheveled, re-injured, and clouding his bathroom with Lysol. She suspected that he was trying to cover up the hints of cigarette smoke that she was able to smell on his discarded paper robe. He still smelled like a clinical attempt at imitating a rain-fresh valley.

"…Kamui, please…" Sorata repeated.

"Look, I have no idea, all right?"

"None whatsoever?"

"Could we _please_ not talk about it?"

"…Kamui, what in the--?"

"Just get out."

"_Kamui, come on—_"

"I _don't_ want to _talk_ about it, _all right_?" Sorata lowered his hand and shoved both into his pockets awkwardly. Arashi glanced at him and half-listened to his protests and questions as to what could be the matter before maintaining her detached observance of Kamui and Subaru.

_Something is definitely wrong with them._

"Kamui, _come on_, we're trying to help Fuuma—"

"GET OUT."

"Kamui…" said Subaru quietly, starting to reach out.

"—do you want the docs to help Fuuma and catch the guy that messed him up, or not?"

Subaru went dead silent and crossed his arms. Kamui stared at Sorata, then glared sideways at Subaru before turning back. "There is no need for that. It isn't going to help him. He's already fucked up."

"You know something, don't you?" said Arashi.

"GET OUT."

* * *

The array of black, crossed industrial wires, apartment buildings, and shadowed alleyways comprising the view from Seishirou's balcony glared with nine o'clock sunlight. Seishirou stood in the open sliding-glass doorway aside a desk fan that had been positioned in the doorpost to aid in airing out the dark apartment. His teeth and jaw were going to be a hellish mess for a while, and his abdomen was protesting any sudden movements. He had cleaned himself up and taken enough painkillers to suffice for the time being, and had arranged for an emergency, before-clinic appointment with the dentist that was estimated to take the entire morning. He would probably be unable to eat solid food for at least twenty-four hours. He thoughtfully pressed his fingertip atop the ridge of the gauze around his front teeth and applied pressure until blood soaked through, vacantly staring over the alley and rocking his finger enough to cause the slightest waves of pain. The bloodied rag frog was still on his counter, staring at him with pinpricks of sunlight glaring off of its black-marble eyes. He stopped, blinked out of his daze, and lifted his finger.

"Do you think I took that too far?" he whispered.

The frog watched his back silently. Seishirou sighed and winced, then gingerly cinched his tie and straightened his lab coat.

"This is a rather handsome price to pay just to win trust."

The frog stared at his back.

"…you're right." He walked toward the door and scraped his keys off the kitchen table in passing with a dull clinking. "Perhaps I did make that far too dramatic. Martyring myself doesn't mesh very well with either of my personalities, does it?"

* * *

"_It's going to be all right."_

"_Do you really mean that?"_

"_Yes. We'll make it all right."_

"_Even if I—?"_

* * *

"—Ka-uui?"

* * *

"_Yes?"_

"_I forgive you. I understand. And… there's something I've always wanted to tell you."_

* * *

"…Ka-uui?"

* * *

"_I love you. I want to be with you forever. I've always loved you. You're my best friend, and you always have been—"_

* * *

"Whaaaaat?"

Kamui blinked and realized irritably that he was still in the hospital room. He had lost himself in a half-sleeping, half-consciously woven fantasy of the sort in which he had languished to comfort himself at multiple other points of his life, before he fell asleep, or when he was bored, whatever the case might be. It was so well-woven into the matrix of his mind that he could skip over the finite details that made it seem mundanely and awkwardly realistic to get right to the most enjoyable bits.

"-uui!" Movement on the bed caught Kamui's attention. He glanced up in shock to see that Fuuma was consciously trying to move. His voice was muffled by the gauzy splint holding his cracked jaw shut. "_Mmmmh_—"

Kamui's stomach dropped. _Oh my god. Fuuma. FUUMA._

"—uui? Mmmh—"

"It's—yes, it's Kamui." Kamui swallowed excitedly, took a deep breath, and swung his leg over the chair to dismount. His legs had grown stiff with sitting in the same position for a good portion of several hours. He glanced to the side. Subaru was gone, but he had left his bag. _Good. Good._ He took another deep breath and shoved the first flickers of guilt out of his head. _Nothing is official between us. Come on, just go. _

"Mmh!" Fuuma impulsively tried to sit up and remembered that he was strapped to the bed. He could not move his neck to look around. Heart pounding and nerves tensed with excitement, Kamui walked around to the side of the bed and stared down. Fuuma was confused, tired, scared, and disheveled. His hair was mussed, and his hospital robe was crumpled and torn as a result of the paper pulling against the straps when he tossed. His jaw-splint was half yanked loose and blood-blotched, and there was a stitched-and-dressed gash above his eye. Above all, though, he was himself. He was _aware._ Kamui no longer got the feeling of looking into a calculating mirror when meeting his eyes. There was depth, complexity, and a definite and independent mind.

"…hey, Fuuma."

Fuuma blinked and tilted his head in question, clearly asking '_What the hell is going on, and why am I strapped to this thing?'_ Kamui shrugged. He didn't know where to start.

"Are you hurting anywhere?" Kamui started to undo the buckle strapping Fuuma's neck. Fuuma glanced out the window. "Don't try to talk. Your jaw is cracked. Do you remember anything?"

Fuuma shook his head jerkily, still taking nervous, sidelong glances out the window at the dawn sunlight. Kamui freed Fuuma's shoulders. Fuuma sat up as far as he could with his arms still strapped down and winced. Kamui pushed him back onto the bed.

"Don't move. You've been injured. Are you feeling… um… all right?"

Fuuma glanced nervously at Kamui, then back outside, then at the wall, then back—

"I'm sorry that you were strapped down." Kamui freed his right arm, which Fuuma shook out. "That—must have frightened you when you woke up. But you were thrashing around and raving. I really don't know what's going on, either. What is the last thing that you… remember?"

Fuuma was looking around the room. He stopped, thought for a moment, and motioned to a writing pad and a pen on the bedside table. Kamui set both in his lap. Fuuma glanced over the paper, shifting his position oddly since his left side was still constrained, bent his leg and adjusted the pad on his thigh, and underlined the 'CLAMP Campus Medical Center' letterhead several times with question marks.

"What? Oh, yeah, that's where we are."

Fuuma scribbled on the page. Kamui watched. There was something confirming and intimate in seeing his friend's handwriting, somehow more so than hearing his voice. His script was currently far more shaky and awkward than Kamui remembered, but it was still clearly his own. Kamui blinked hard and worked on Fuuma's left wrist, glancing back and forth between the strap and the paper. _God damn it, what the hell is wrong with you? Don't cry! You're acting like a girl._

/Still? How long was I out/

'_Still?' …oh… wait… that's right._ "A long time."

/How long is that/ Fuuma shook out his right arm and shifted the pad on his knee. /Where is Kotori? Is she all right/

Kamui stopped on Fuuma's left arm. Fuuma watched Kamui before scribbling on the paper.

/What's wrong? What happened/

…_everything._ _She's dead. God, Fuuma, you really do have no idea how much has happened, do you? Oh my god. How the hell am I going to explain all of this to you? God fucking dammit, stop looking at me like that. This will be the last time I ever see you stare at me like that._ Kamui silently freed the rest of Fuuma's body. Fuuma sat up and stretched out his arms, still glancing around nervously, but calming. _You're going to hurt so badly. Oh god. Come on, Shirou. You have to tell him. You have to break his heart. Stare at his face. Memorize it. You'll never see that face again. Come on, how many times have you prepared yourself for this? How many?_ Fuuma sat up and rubbed his own shoulders, cocking his head to the side and waiting patiently for an answer. Kamui screwed his eyes shut. _This is it. This is it._ He took a shuddering breath. _Godfucking_ _DAMMIT, don't even start crying now. But it won't work out great. This is real. _He stared at the white sheets and the bumpy, porous material of Fuuma's clinical-blue and white hospital gown. Everything was too real and momentary. All of his former fantasies about this moment and its cathartic, anguish-filled climax followed by a blissful, rebuilding relationship, were completely forgotten.

Fuuma touched Kamui's shoulder.

"She's dead."

Fuuma's hand did not move. Kamui stared at his shoulder, concentrating on the dimpled texture of the blue cloth and following minute white threads running toward the hem; he was unable to see any small tension beneath the drape of the gown. He glanced at Fuuma's other hand, which was resting on top of the writing pad and fingering the thin flap of glue-binding where paper had been torn free in the past. His finger stopped. Kamui swallowed and concentrated on the hand.

"She's dead, Fuuma." Kamui dully listened to his own voice and glanced at Fuuma's face. Not a muscle was moving beneath the dressings. Kamui wet his tongue and stared back down at his hand before he could get a clear look at Fuuma's eyes. _This is the right track._ He glanced up at Fuuma's eyes for a split second. The confusion was deepening; he was sorting out Kamui's words, and the shock was fading off. He dropped his hand from Kamui's shoulder. _Don't stop talking. Just tell him everything. GOD FUCKING—Don't trust your judgment right now—just do what you know you have to do—_

"You were 'out' for—several months—Kotori died as soon as you lost consciousness—you went insane—you weren't yourself, so you can't take what anybody says about you to heart, because it wasn't you—it was me—I was controlling you like a puppet because I was too weak to stay away from you—I killed her—I made you kill her, I controlled your hands and your arm and your—the sword, I made you hurt so many people—I ruined your… _life—_" Kamui screwed tears out of his eyes and sobbed. _Dammit. Dammit. Dammit._ "I fucked so many people over—it's my fault everybody is dead, your father was guarding the sword, your mom fucking died—your family got mixed up in this because you knew me—because I reached out to you and got to know you—all this shit happened—it's all my fault—I'm sorry—I'm so sorry—I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"

Kamui hiccupped and sat down heavily on the end of the bed. He took a deep breath, whined, and started to sob hysterically. _Oh, great, you pathetic, pathetic, BASTARD. Stop it. I want to be held—Fuuma, come on, I'm hurting, do something—stop that. Fuuma, please—stop. He's going to kill me. Oh my god, I can't even look at him right now._ Kamui pressed his eyes into the heels of his hands. _I want to die. I want to disappear and die. It's over. It's all over. He'll hate you forever. This is it, Kamui._ He brought up the fresh memory of Fuuma's confused, scared, but open face, and wailed and pressed his eyes until he saw dull, painful explosions of color. _Oh my god. It's over. Stop it. Stop. It. That memory is all you'll ever have—You promised yourself you wouldn't cry, you stupid prick. _

Fuuma was silent. Kamui sobbed and gritted his teeth, silently praying to disappear. A long while passed. Fuuma slipped the pad onto Kamui's lap.

/Somebody was just in the doorway./

"…who?" Kamui winced at the high pitch of his response and watched his tears blot the ink. Fuuma slipped the pad back into his own lap, ripped off the top page, and wrote for a few seconds. The scratching was agonizingly slow. Kamui hiccupped and stared at his lap, concentrating on his rumpled hospital trousers and waiting for the pad to be slid back into his line-of-sight.

/Tall guy with a white coat and a bandage around his eye. He left./

"…Subaru. Oh FUCK." Kamui hissed and continued to brokenly curse under his breath. Fuuma retrieved the pad after a few moments and waited. Kamui sobbed, pressed his hands into his eyes again in a halfhearted attempt at making himself black out, and shook his head at the momentary blankness during which his thoughts were scattered before they reorganized themselves painfully once again. _Fuck it, Subaru, why do you have to show up and skark around NOW…_ He swallowed and whined with a repressed sob. He was trying to sense Fuuma's expression before having to look up at him. Fuuma was being torturously immobile and closed. Kamui could tell that he was withholding his feelings from being sensed; it was a practice he had taught Kamui when they were training together in Kendo as children. The brief memory of the wet shrine grounds—a mental flash of a young Kotori with loose, wavy hair in a white shift holding an armful of sticks and watching while her brother and Kamui mock-battled with practice swords that were twice too big for either of them—flickered through Kamui's scattered mind. He tried to grasp onto the memory in its unadulterated form and preserve it before he embellished on the bits he could not remember. It was a pure memory, not a fantasy he wove around truth when he was looking for hope and reason for continuing.

Kamui glanced sidelong at Fuuma, the latter of whom was staring motionlessly at the wall. His face was still stony, though his eyes were distancing. Kamui wet his tongue and swallowed.

"Do you want me to leave you alone?"

Fuuma did not answer. Kamui watched him for a few seconds until the tension became unbearable, stood up, and slowly walked out of the room. He stopped in the doorway, loosely pulling the door closed behind him. He was debating walking back in and making more attempts at communication when he remembered that his original plan had been to tell Fuuma that he had been the one to kill Kotori with his own hands, not merely by consequence of his heart. He cursed sharply and slammed the door into the jam.

_Well, if you were in his position, you would pull all of the 'It's my fault for being weak and controlled' shit, now wouldn't you? He's going to fucking kill himself now. God damn it, Shirou, you coward._ He slid down the door and collapsed into a knot, head buried in arms. He had long ago made the intellectual decision that he would rather be hated by Fuuma and have Fuuma forgive himself because he knew that he _should_, but deep down, he would rather have them share the guilt and still have some chance at keeping Fuuma as a friend, even if Fuuma was more tortured in the long run. He had pushed the former decision forward so that he could feel better about himself when he finally made it happen. It didn't. He curled tighter and whined.

Somebody sat down next to him and touched his shoulder. Kamui looked up. Subaru slid his hand to Kamui's opposite shoulder and gathered Kamui's head against his own shoulder, stroking his hair and back, alternately. Kamui allowed himself to uncurl and collapse into Subaru's arms. He settled his cheek into the crook of Subaru's shoulder, sliding against the soft lapel of his white overcoat. Subaru was stiflingly warm and familiar, from his lanky frame to the scent of cigarettes and musty clothing. Subaru never wore cologne, nor did he take much time to do laundry on a regular basis, but beyond chain-smoking he kept himself clean.

"…hey," Subaru half-whispered. He sounded awkward. "Did you tell him?"

"You should fucking know. You were standing in the doorway."

Kamui knew that he was being unfair, but at the moment, he didn't care. Subaru stopped, mildly surprised, and then resumed his stroking.

"The door was open. I just wanted to see why you were so upset."

"Well, now you fucking know, don't you?"

Subaru stopped. "Kamui—"

"No, nothing's your fault. I'm _sorry_. I—it's just—argh." Kamui stood up sharply, brushing Subaru into the wall, and stopped, momentarily horrified at how sharp he was being. Subaru was watching him with a hurt, confused expression, still sprawled from catching himself on his hand when Kamui had slid out from under him. "I just—I'm sorry, I just need to be alone. It's not you. I'm sorry, Subaru. I've fucked everything up. I just don't want to talk about it." _Least of all to you._

Subaru closed his good eye and pushed himself up, then unfolded his crossed legs and stood. "That's fine. I understand. If… you know, when you feel better…"

"Thanks. Sorry." Kamui walked away, shaking his head vigorously and scrubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. Red light glared through his eyelids when he did this; he glanced at the backs of his hands and saw that the pentagrams were lit. He shoved his hands into his pockets violently and ran down the hall, praying Subaru didn't notice.

_The Sakurazukamori started all of this—_

* * *

"They're lit again."

"Five-hundred says Sakurazuka is lying."

"Five-hundred says Kamui dumps Subaru like a hot rock—"

"What the hell is this?"

Satsuki and Yuuto looked over their shoulders at the new speaker. Kanoe stared over their heads at the tri-screen setup Satsuki had configured, one screen featuring Fuuma staring at the wall in his hospital room, one screen showing Kamui wandering down the hallway with his hands shoved into his pockets and intermittently stumbling into orderlies and doctors, and the third showing Subaru sitting crossed-legged and brooding outside of Fuuma's door where he had been left. Satsuki sipped her tea and nonchalantly turned back to the screens. Yuuto smiled pleasantly and gestured toward the confection dolly.

"Kanoe! Welcome! Would you like to join us? We're starting a rather complicated gambling table. You can win the entire pot by betting that there will be no more drama--"

"What is this?"

Kanoe walked closer to Fuuma's screen and stared. Yuuto folded his hands loosely on the table and watched after her.

"Oh, that's Fuuma-kun having a mental breakdown. Right now not much is going on in there, though. He's been like that for a while. We're also starting a gambling chart for when he'll move, if you'd like in. Really, even though the company is impeccable, this gets boring with only two—"

Yuuto flinched; Kanoe had rounded on him and was shaking his shoulder. "Get him BACK. NOW."

"…ma'am?"

"He is no longer our Kamui, Kanoe," said Satsuki.

"I don't care. I'd rather have him here where we can _fix_ him."

"Ah, I don't see any reason for that." Yuuto cupped Kanoe's hand on his shoulder and stroked it comfortingly. "The war is over. The Dragons of Heaven won. We are left at leisure to concentrate on the pettier things in life, like relationships and drama. Personally, I rather like this ending better than getting myself killed just so the world can get destroyed." Kanoe withdrew, horrified. "Seems rather silly to me."

"…whose side are you on, Yuuto?"

"Why, I am a Dragon of Earth, of course."

"Then, what the hell… who did this? Sakurazuka? Did _he_ do this? Is my entire organization a den of _snakes?_—"

"You knew that he never cared about the war either way."

"Why didn't you tell me about this earlier? You KNEW, didn't you?" Kanoe looked from Yuuto to Satsuki, poleaxed. Yuuto was watching her with his head tilted amusedly, annoyingly enough to make her want to smack him. Satsuki was watching the screen calmly, ignoring her. "…why are you just sitting there? Do something! Capture Sakurazuka, torture him, make an example of him, and get Kamui _back_! …_don't just sit there!_ Get up!" Kanoe threw Yuuto's teacup at his head; Yuuto deflected it with his arm. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, YUUTO?"

"It would be a waste of energy to go out there, Kanoe. There's no point. We can't do anything."

"You're the _king_ of pointless! Since when did you start questioning orders, anyway? Usually, you just go out there and do it!"

"I don't feel like it."

"…you don't feel like it."

"No, I don't."

Kanoe twitched, gaping, seconds from swiping the table clean of its spread of tea-china and confections. _What the hell is wrong with him? Is he trying to impress Satsuki or something? _She closed her mouth and smoothed her hair, sure that she looked like an idiot, and took a calming breath.

"…so you'd rather sit around and laugh at people's petty little lives, like they're some kind of soap opera, than trying to do something productive? That's really _impressive_, Yuuto. I'm proud of you."

"No, it's like watching reality TV. It's worse and funnier. Would you care to join us?"

Kanoe stomped out and slammed the double doors.


	12. The Hawk's Sermon

_What the hell are you thinking, Subaru? You know that you don't love Kamui. You love Seishirou. No, _something _is there, I just can't… All right. Think. …you lust for Kamui, you want to drown in him and basically use him, you self-serving, pathetic bastard, but—no, I can learn to love him—I will, if only he'd reciprocate. I'll be free of Seishirou—stop, you _want _to be free of Seishirou. You _know _that you do, don't you? You won't care or miss it when it's gone, right? _

"Subaru?" Sorata called from the kitchen.

—_he's friendship, it's like… I want him, God, I want him, but it's not—yes, yes, it might be, and your heart just might not be free yet to know—it's been a freaking month, Subaru, and you still don't know where the hell your heart is. Why—_

"Hey, Subaru? You outside?"

—_Seishirou—_

Subaru heard Sorata walk toward the screen door.

—_if this is just lust, why does it hurt so damn much—when did I get so wishy-washy, anyway? What happened to that love you were sure was there a month ago—was that just because we made out? Did I get a taste for that, and that's all I want now? Heaven knows I've been craving it ever since. My god. I'm so shallow._

"Oi!" Sorata slammed the screen door back against the house.

—_I've always been a captive of the sakura, after all—_

"Subaru!"

Subaru stared straight ahead, running his fingers along the overlay loops on the sides of the wicker chair arms. He had finally had the bandages around his eye removed to be replaced with a glass eye, and the socket and nerves behind it were excruciatingly sore. —_but… NO. NO, you have to break free. You know it. Kamui is your chance. There's a chance there for something to develop—_

"…Subaru?"

"…yes?"

"What, are you going deaf?" Sorata stepped onto the patio and clapped Subaru's shoulder. Subaru gripped the chair arms. "It's your day for laundry, Sub. You better get after it. A good pile's forming after the rain yesterday."

"All right. Sorry."

"Hey…" Sorata stood back as Subaru stood, scraping the chair across the wooden deck. "When's the month mark for you going off your smokes?"

"I didn't mark an exact day."

"But it's been, like, a month, right? I mean, you stopped after everything happened, and—"

Subaru brushed past Sorata into the house and slammed the screen door after him. He heard Sorata yelling after him and the door opening and crashing into its frame again. Sure, he had stopped smoking to impress Kamui, but it was so far doing as much good as anything else he was attempting in that area. Aside from the magical benefits, his cigarettes used to give him a calm window in which to contemplate Seishirou, which was redundant anyway given his reason for smoking in the first place and Seishirou's constant residence in his head. _Anything_ triggered thoughts of Seishirou. A lack of triggers in itself triggered thoughts of Seishirou. Subaru caught himself forcing Kamui into his thoughts in place of Seishirou every time the latter subject arose, which was, in the first place, the reason he had started liking Kamui at all.

_Well, yeah, you've forced yourself to like him, Subaru. He was your distraction. He was a proxy. He _is _a proxy. I like how I've been doing it for weeks now and I still dodge that idea; that's really nice._ He walked past the open living room door and glared at Fuuma in passing, the latter of whom was in his usual when-at-home location: in the armchair, immobile. He winced at the protest his sore eye-socket gave every time he narrowed his eyes. _Bastard bastard bastard die die die die— stop it, you prick. It's not his fault. God, he makes me sick. First Seishirou, now Kamui; how much more are you going to take from me, you bastard? Ehh!_ Subaru shook his head sharply. _Don't-think-don't-think-don't-think-don't-thinkaboutit.__Get over it. Woe is you; you made your bed, now sleep in it. God, this is so confusing—either way, he's still taken everything from me. –No, he hasn't._

"Subaru-san?"

Subaru stopped with his hand on the laundry room door handle and stared at Yuzuriha and Inuki, startled. _God, you're slipping, Sumeragi. She was right next to you—_

"Are you all right?" she asked. Inuki, who had grown exponentially during the month, whined softly and stared up at him. "You seem really off lately."

He thought for a moment and opened the door. "More so than usual?"

"Well, yeah…"

Subaru turned his back to her and stepped in the room to begin sorting clothes. He glanced sidelong when he saw her lean down next to him on his good side and pull darks out of a basket, Inuki by her legs and wagging his tail in concern. The Dragons of Heaven had subconsciously developed the habit of approaching him from his left side so they would not startle him, as he had developed the parallel habit of always being to the right of people, and he appreciated it more than he let on.

"Don't; it's not your—"

"I know it's not. I just feel like helping out. Besides, I want to talk to you."

Subaru turned his head to look at her fully. Yuzuriha was smiling back.

"…about what?"

"You know what." Subaru sighed heavily and turned back to fervidly tearing dark clothes from the pile. "Subaru-san, you know that there are no secrets around here. We all know what's going on."

"Yeah, well…"

"We're all worried, Subaru-san."

"Don't be—"

"We _will_ be! We care about you, whether you see that or not, Mr. Woe-and-Depression-nobody-loves-me. And we care about Kamui-chan and Fuuma-san—" Subaru threw a girl's uniform skirt into the washing machine a bit too harshly. Inuki flinched and flattened his ears. "—and we just want to do what we can, you know? Is there anything we _can_ do?"

"No, Yuzuriha-san."

"I mean, well, Fuuma's a whole different issue altogether, but that's no reason to ignore the fact that you're hurting as well." Subaru shrugged and pulled the detergent box off the shelf. Yuzuriha crossed her arms. "I'm sick of your attitude! How can you be so passive about the fact that you're hurting? It's like you think you deserve it!"

"I've been in hell ever since I fell captive to the sakura. This is nothing new to me."

"Well, guess what? We want something new for you, Subaru-san. And I _hate_ it when you talk like that!" Inuki nuzzled the backs of Subaru's legs through his white coat. Subaru furrowed his eyebrows, mock-concentrating on measuring detergent in the plastic scoop. "And things _have_ been different with you. You're… _touchy_. You stomp all over the place and slam doors. You're not like _you_ at all. Well, I mean, being 'like you' hurt as well, and we did want a change but… not this! Um. Wait. Look, you're…" Subaru dumped the detergent over the wash load and closed the lid. "…you're changing for the worse, Subaru. You're short and standoffish now. What on earth is going on?"

"At least I feel like I'm alive now."

"What?"

"Nothing." Subaru cranked the control knobs on the machine and started it. The noise reverberated in the alcove. "You said you knew, didn't you? I mean, about what is going on."

"We… do, we think we do, but… we want to know for sure."

Subaru leaned on the vibrating machine, hands on either corner, and stared at the lid. He felt Yuzuriha move next to him. Inuki brushed closer around his legs.

"Subaru-san… we all love you. You know that, don't you? Every last one of us."

"Yes, I know. It means a lot to me. I mean, yeah, even though I don't show it, it really does." Yuzuriha wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her nose in his arm. He stiffened awkwardly, then slowly allowed himself to relax. He could tell that she was wearing traces of raspberry body spray of some sort.

"…I just have a hard time believing that now after what happened to me a long time ago," he said. "It's a long story."

"Well, believe it."

"I mean, it means a lot to me, but—" He sighed. In spite of himself, he felt comforted. _I love people who don't make my life complicated._ "I don't know. Thank you, Yuzuriha-san. Do you know where Kamui is?"

"Hm?" She released Subaru and looked up at him. "No, he's been out all day."

"I know. You don't know where he went?"

"He just said he had something to take care of. I don't know; he started acting funny after he visited Fuuma-san this morning and stomped out of the house in a huff. I hope he's not getting into trouble. Aoki-san and Karen-san are coming for dinner this evening, and they will want to see him. I'm hoping one of them will talk some sense into him. I don't know. You've been weird lately, Subaru-san, but Kamui's just been plain frightening."

"Did you send anybody to follow him?" Subaru busied himself sorting the other baskets of laundry to mentally dodge forming ideas. He was already nauseated enough. _Fuuma, Fuuma, Fuuma, always Fuuma._ _He wouldn't care if I died. God, this is so fucked up; I don't know if I even really love him, so why does this have to hurt so much?—Seishirou, Seishirou—argh, so it's either one or the other now? Why can't I shut my heart off?_

"...Subaru-san? You all right?"

"Oh. Sorry. What did you say?"

"I said 'No, because Hinoto-hime said that we could indulge these whims of his without worry.' I don't know, though. I'm getting a bad feeling from her lately, and Inuki's been acting odd around her…"

* * *

"_It is so easy to get people to trust you. All you have to do is listen to them calmly and make sense when you respond…"_

* * *

Kamui hadn't been sure of what to expect when he had first visited Seishirou's clinic a few weeks ago, but it was more along the lines of finding Seishirou smirking in his office, leaning back in his chair and swilling wine, than finding a mild-mannered and unassuming man hunched over his paperwork with a laptop running by his right elbow. Even when Kamui had barged into his office amid loud protests from the nurses, Seishirou had just glanced up through his glasses—the wire-framed, more functional-than-fashionable, reading kind, not his usual dark pair—and waited patiently for Kamui to speak, pen still poised over his work. He did not feign ignorance or question, but requested that Kamui shut the door after him and keep his voice down so as not to disturb his patients.

Kamui's first thought on that visit was that there was no way on earth that this man could be a serial killer and a rapist, but he brushed the thought aside, slammed the door, and smashed his palms into Seishirou's desk, yelling in a blind rage. He couldn't remember what exactly he had said, but it had been on the subject of Fuuma screaming all night in his sleep. Seishirou had watched Kamui coolly, maintaining eye contact, which was when Kamui had noticed for the first time, after he had blown off enough steam to notice things coherently, that Seishirou, like Subaru, had trouble focusing his eyes at close range. His glass eye stared straight ahead, but his living, brown eye flickered, and after a few minutes, he sat back with his eyes closed, still listening calmly with no interjection but to remind Kamui to keep his voice down. In spite of himself, Kamui noticed that by the lapse of five minutes he had calmed significantly was speaking in a frenzied whisper. He had also lost his initial inclination to beat the ever-loving hell out of Seishirou once again, but he had also gotten the feeling that if he did, this time, Seishirou would defend himself.

Their four following meetings had followed in much the same fashion, though in the following times the nurses and receptionist had been given instructions to allow him full access to Seishirou's office without obstruction. They at first gave Kamui confused looks, but eventually began to smirk knowingly and allow him passage with sidelong glances to one another. The receptionist even winked at him once and asked him to take good care of the doctor, who they knew was lonely and suffering from something he never discussed in his past. They all loved him dearly and wanted him to find somebody nice, even if they had never suspected that he was gay; they were all young enough and of the temperament to accept this discovery without disgust. Kamui brushed their assumptions off with scorn. It was better to have them assume what they would than speculate further into the matter.

Today was their sixth meeting since their initial conversation on the hospital roof, and Kamui had seated himself in Seishirou's office to wait for Seishirou to return from seeing a patient. He had claimed as a rite-by-passage the heavy, maroon-leather and wood armchair in the corner, and was half-heartedly studying the certificates on the far wall behind the desk and getting an odd-angle glimpse of Seishirou's ludicrous screen saver. It was, of all things, neon-pink pigs dashing across the screen. Seishirou had started snickering over it in the middle of one of their talks, which had sent Kamui into another height of rage at the time over having the matter at hand being taken so lightly. Seishirou had apologized and shown Kamui the ratty, stuffed pig he kept on corner chair. According to Seishirou, Subaru had spent hours trying to win it for him at a matsuri during what Seishirou called "The Year", capitols implied by his tone, and it kept him company when he was left alone with his thoughts.

Under different circumstances, given their talks and Seishirou's overt openness and boyish innocence, Kamui would never have given Seishirou's merits and worthiness of his trust a second thought, which, for somebody who trusted nobody, was a feat. There were times when he left the office convinced that Seishirou was his confidant, best friend, and mentor, but he had started kicking himself soon after and reminding himself of Fuuma's current state and Subaru's perpetual hellish depression. Nothing could forgive those things, even if Seishirou's intentions were as pure as he had implied. And it was just plain odd that somebody with such a seemingly genuine and gentle heart could be the indifferent, cold-blooded assassin Kamui had encountered in battle before. He had been convinced that Seishirou was the embodiment of pure evil and deception, but when he was talking to the soft-spoken veterinarian he now knew those memories started to fade. They just plain did not _fit_.

_Well, he's either damn good at acting… or, either way, he's just damn good at acting. Oh my god, this is so confusing. All right._ Kamui scanned the certificate proclaiming completion of a residency, first class honors, in a local Tokyo veterinary hospital. He heard Seishirou thank a nurse for something and start walking toward the office. _Subaru told me he's the master of ultimate deception, and he would know best, but… if that's true, would that backfire? Like, he would deceive Subaru by making Subaru think that the truth had been an illusion all along? And by god, Shirou, that doesn't forgive him for all those people he killed and what he did to Fuuma or Subaru…_

Seishirou toed the door open and backed into the room with a stack of charts. He kicked the door closed and dropped the stack on his desk, then nodded and smiled at Kamui. He was wearing green pants and a green tie underneath his coat today, the sort of dress that had shocked Kamui the first time he had seen Seishirou in his work clothes. He used to be sure that Seishirou had no perception of clothing colors beyond black and white, but after seeing Seishirou in a pink suit once, anything else seemed tame by comparison.

"Good afternoon, Shirou-kun." Seishirou sat down behind his desk. "Would you like something to drink? I started making cider with the coffee machine today."

"Tell me, could I just kill you for gross negligence and being a complete and utter idiot, or should I kill you for being a lying, manipulative bastard?"

"I see we're going to cut right to the chase today." Seishirou sighed and cleaned his glasses on his coat, then replaced them over his eyes and settled back in his chair. "What has happened now? How are Fuuma-kun and Subaru-kun doing?"

"You have some real gall asking me that."

"It's never stopped me before, has it? Well, at least we're beyond the 'Don't you DARE speak their names in front of me; you aren't fit to grovel to them, you bastard' stage." He scooted back, opened a drawer above his leg-space, and pulled out a box of Pocky. "Are you hungry?"

"No. You make me sick."

"I am sorry to hear that." Seishirou smiled sadly and pulled the ribbed strip off the top of the box's front face. "I hope you do not mind that I eat. I haven't eaten since last night. I've been up all night nursing a dog who was hit by some idiot driver, and she passed away this morning, so I didn't get breakfast or lunch. Don't tell the girls I'm eating this stuff. They'll get on my case for not eating healthier."

"That's nice; don't care. Look…"

Kamui opened his mouth and frantically thought of what to say. _What the hell's the matter with you, Shirou? He's affecting you after all of this? You used to come in here and just speak your mind, and now the cat keeps getting a better hold of your tongue every time you try to start. _

"…you've made a huge mistake. I mean, either way, you've either tried to lie to me, which I promise you is a death wish—" He glared; Seishirou blinked calmly and paused in ripping a Pocky packet open. "—or you've fucked up big time, and I'll never forgive you for it. What the hell—how could you even think that you were doing anything remotely good at all? How did you get through college? You're a complete idiot!"

Seishirou pulled a stick out of the package and gnawed on it calmly. "…we've had this talk before, Shirou-kun, and I have explained to you a million times that it was the only way to get Fuuma-kun back. And I have told you as many times over that I researched every other possible solution, but nothing short of ending the war would do it. I have been educated in every form of magic for thirty-four years now, and it took all of my knowledge and string-pulling to find this solution. I regret that I had to result to such a vile practice as rape, but it was that, or a good chance the world would be destroyed and billions of lives lost, and even if the world was not destroyed, there would still be more casualties than have already occurred. _Lost,_ Shirou-kun, forever gone and with no chance at anything, and I believe that a chance at life even with past wounds is better than just dying. Yes, I have done something unforgivable and devastating—humiliating—to your friend, something of the utmost repugnance and evil, but it was a no-win situation. What I did was the lesser of the two evils."

"The lesser of the…" Kamui's voice cracked with impending hyperventilation. "…the lesser of the…"

"Normally you wouldn't let me get through that entire speech without screaming at me." Seishirou arched his eyebrows. "Are you growing more placid, or are you actually growing to trust me?"

"NO! Either way, lying or not, I hate you!" Seishirou nodded, obviously hurt, and concentrated on the foil Pocky packet. Kamui had learned that Seishirou transferred depth of reaction through his eyes, even if he had few facial expressions beyond neutrality and smiling. _Did what happened to him do that, or did he used to be more lively?_ "…I don't want to end up like you. I mean, if you're telling the truth, _which I don't assume that you are,_ so don't get your hopes up, I don't want to end up as pathetic as you. I mean, you're pathetic either way! God!" Kamui jumped up and started to pace. "You're pathetic!"

"Am I really so pathetic, Shirou-kun?"

"Yes! There are no other words to describe you! That's all you are!"

"I see." Seishirou interlocked his fingers over his mouth and leaned on his elbows. "Maybe I am willing to appear that way for the greater good. The world can think what it likes about me so long as I can protect it."

"Oh, get off your high horse!" Kamui smashed his hands into the desk; Seishirou's coffee cup jangled and sloshed coffee across his paperwork. Seishirou shook his head and ripped a tissue out of its box to mop up the mess while Kamui continued to yell. "You conceited, self-serving, _conceited—_"

"Please keep your voice down."

"—_SELFISH_—"

"Shhh." Seishirou placed his fingers over Kamui's mouth and pulled them back before Kamui could snap them. "Practice what you preach and consider my patients, please."

"_I'll show you practice—_"

Kamui punched at Seishirou's face. Seishirou caught his fist, then the other fist Kamui threw after it, and pinned both to the table. Kamui struggled and cursed, seconds from collecting energy in his hands to make Seishirou let go, but Seishirou gave him a wan look.

"Please don't start this indoors. You are here to criticize me, are you not?"

"That's not it—"

"Then don't lower yourself, and you will have an easier job doing it. Listen to me." Seishirou pulled Kamui down closer to his face level, keeping his voice calm. "You talk about being unselfish, and yet you consider the personal tragedy of one person more important than the ultimate tragedy of billions of other human beings. Yes, people, like you, like me, like my girls in the front, like Subaru and Fuuma, but it's just too hard to think about that, isn't it? Just because that person is the most important to you, his ultimate comfort is more important than the fate of the rest of humanity. And don't picture a bunch of faceless, boring people when I say that. Picture real people, fascinating people, with lives and families and love and loss, to whom you can relate."

"How can you say it like that? That's not—"

"Because it's true. And you know why else? I used to be exactly like you. Exactly, so I have a right to say all of this. I understand. You know all I did just for Subaru's sake. It was utterly selfish. I was too weak to let my loved one suffer, and my vision too narrowly trained on him, to have the fortitude to let him suffer through the truth. I sacrificed innocents because of my selfishness, innocents I had to force myself to see as petty and just not-as-amazing as my Subaru so that I could follow through with murder. But yours is in lieu of a much greater, global tragedy. There is nothing romantic about sacrificing lives for the honor and sake of the person you put on a pedestal."

_You don't understand. I'm not like that. _He took a deep breath. _You're wrong. You're a liar._

…_no, he's not. He's right. Oh my god, I'm going to start crying again. _He cursed violently and swallowed. _Shit. Shit shit shit…_

"Now…" Seishirou released Kamui's hands, and Kamui staggered back and sat heavily on the floor, burying his head in his hands. Kamui heard Seishirou stand and walk around the desk to kneel beside him. Seishirou smelled strongly of cologne. "I'm sorry that I upset you, but you have a very bad habit of asking what you don't want to know. The problem with me is that I will tell you."

"YOU'RE WRONG!"

"Shhh."

"NO, SHUT UP! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT RIGHT!"

Kamui clenched his fists and started sobbing, mentally beating himself for turning into a wreck. He hadn't cried in two weeks, and all of the pressure that had been accumulating finally burst. Subaru had been an emotional drain, and Fuuma was acting like a ghost and flinching every time Kamui touched him as though he had been struck. He heard Seishirou slide something off the desktop and opened his eyes as a box of tissues was offered under his nose. He took it silently and ripped a tissue out just to hold it in his lap, crumpled.

_Oh my god. Oh. My god. You're crying in front of the Sakurazukamori. In his office. On his floor like a little girl. This wasn't supposed to happen. You were just supposed to come in here, beat the hell out of him, and leave. And now you're LISTENING to him? Just because he's right doesn't mean everything else he says isn't a complete lie. Isn't that being a master of deception? Getting people to trust you? GOD…_

"Why did you come to visit today?" Seishirou asked softly.

Kamui sniffed and wiped his nose, then crumpled the tissue again. "…I just… tried to be… nice to Fuuma, like… hug him… and he got stiff like he was disgusted and afraid. Every time I try to touch him, well, not every time, it's like, sometimes…" Kamui sniffed hard and crossed his arms, trying to control himself. "…it's like, if people give him a friend-hug, he's fine, and he smiles, but… I think he… it's like he knows I feel differently… I don't know if I'm looking like a lecher or something, but I'm not trying to be. I'm just trying to sort of tell him… you know, in movements… that I want to be closer. You've made him fucking afraid of that! You _monster_! He associates it with being _hurt_!"

"Maybe he's just straight."

Kamui punched Seishirou in the stomach, an attack that was relatively weak given his sitting position and Seishirou's angle. He dully noted that Seishirou's abdomen was flat and hard through his dress shirt and pulled his fist away, sobbing. Seishirou sighed and shifted so that he was sitting with his back to the desk.

"All right, I know," said Seishirou. "If he is not straight, that is going to be something you have to help him get over. It is unfortunate."

"FUCKING—NO!"

"You think I'm happy with the outcome of this? I feel horrible for both of you, but it was this or a worse tragedy. Worse, Shirou-kun. Always think of that. It can always get worse."

"Fuck you! Just… fuck off. You don't understand. Don't preach to me when you don't understand." Kamui sniffed and blew his nose again, realizing that despite the noise he had been making, none of the nurses had come in to see if everything was all right. _Sakurazuka must have given them orders to keep out no matter what. Good._ "…he's never going to be all right, Sakurazuka. Never. You've fucked him up for life, and you just don't have any idea what it's like, so shut up. I'll never forgive you."

"It was either that, or he would never be himself again, Shirou-kun."

"Whatever. At least as Dark… me…. he was happy."

"Dark Kamui had no emotions."

"_Ohhh, sorry_, that makes it _all better_! Yeah, from indifference to pain: that fixes it right up, you bastard."

"…and Subaru has been…?"

"Wow, could we… _really_ not talk about him right now?"

"All right." Kamui noted that Seishirou sounded disappointed. The latter checked his watch and patted Kamui on the back. "You may call me Seishirou, by the way, as I keep telling you. Are you hungry?"

Kamui sniffed violently. He had somewhere rediscovered his appetite, but it was beneath his dignity, such as it was at the moment, to admit it. He stared at his crossed legs. Seishirou sighed and stood.

"Come, I'll take you to dinner. We can talk once you've been fed and watered. I feel as though I owe you at least that much."


	13. Brand New Hope

Fuuma padded down the dark hallway in his socks, fully dressed in sturdy, dark clothing, with his backpack slung over his shoulder. He had set his alarm to wake him at 2:00 AM, and in order not to wake his roommate, Kamui—whenever he got back from wherever he was—he had put the alarm on buzz and placed it under his pillow. The alarm had startled Fuuma went it went off. He had yelped, then jerked, and the device had crashed to the floor loudly enough, it seemed, to wake half the campus, but Kamui was still not in the room in the first place, and nobody else indicated that he or she had awoken. Fuuma had packed and thrown his bag in the corner earlier, hiding his schoolbooks under his bed so that people would assume it was crammed with school supplies, and had folded his traveling clothes under his pillow just before he went to sleep.

So far, things were going well. Nobody was awakening, which was lucky considering that he was sneaking past priests and priestesses who had been trained from birth to sense odd behavior around them. Their instincts would be the hardest thing to slip past. Fuuma clicked his tongue slightly and sighed, forcing himself to think on having all of his supplies instead of dwelling on what he was doing and making his presence known. He had packed changes of clothes and needed personal items, his medicine, prescriptions so he could forge when he needed refills, selected photographs, a couple of recreational books, and his CD player and CD wallet. All the cash he had was in his wallet, which ended up being a sturdy amount, along with all of his IDs and needed cards, and a key to Togakushi Shrine. He could not take the cell phone the school's president had supplied, since they knew his number and could probably also physically track him with it, for all he knew, but he had change for pay phones. _Problem is they can track your location that way. Whatever; you're not calling back anyway. Do not look back, Fuuma. This is the right thing to do. You're a time bomb. You do not deserve to stay here any longer._

His memory of all of the things he did as Dark Kamui had slowly and fully been restored ever since he had 'reawakened', as people kept calling it, and he had spent days on end in stupors piecing his memories into a coherent state. Some memories were vivid, feverish picture-montages, while others were far more vivid and sensory. In the latter sort of memory, he could feel metal biting bone and flesh, hear and _feel_ screams and people writhing on the end of his sword, and, in one case, feel vertebrae snapping and tendons popping as he ripped a head clean off of its body. In the slow decapitation case, his victim had made the most hideous, pitiful, agonized noises, nearly silent since the victim was so terrified and in so much pain that he had no breath to scream properly. Fuuma sometimes felt ghosts of the boy's desperate grip on his wrists as he wrenched the head off. He remembered pulling Subaru's head back by its hair and puncturing Subaru's eye with his fingers, which was akin to popping an incredibly thick grape. Subaru had not made a sound, but Fuuma could feel tremors of him fighting to control agonized wails through the back of his socket. He was able to stroke ocular nerves and cones, rods, and fluids in the mangled eye before he pulled his fingers out through the ragged flesh. Fuuma was unable to look Subaru in the eye after he had redeemed this memory, and he had settled into one of his deeper stupors when he was passing the bathroom and heard Subaru hissing in agony the first time he had to dislodge his glass eye and clean it.

And then, there was the memory of Kotori… God, that memory haunted at night. He remembered the blade going through ribcage and flesh until it cut through the iron cross like butter; he remembered pulling the network of wires and slicing through flesh and bone, the feeling of going through tracheal tissue and vertebrae tendons being a prominent sensation. He had never heard somebody scream as loudly and brokenly has Kamui had screamed that day, and the scream tended to punctuate his dreams and mirror his own as soon as he awoke, drenched in sweat, sobbing, and tangled in his sheets with Kamui standing over him in his nightclothes. The only memories that were not intact and vivid were those of the rape, and those progressively got more and more blurry as time passed. He could barely remember what his assailant looked like anymore beyond having dark hair, which was not difficult to find in Japan, and his memory that there was some sort of consent or deal involved somewhere along the lines was now doubtful. What remained was a strong aversion to human contact. At least he had tested clean for STDs.

Fuuma had intermittently broken down and cried hysterically, sometimes in such a state that he was curled up on the floor and clawing his head. He was beyond shame for showing his emotions so openly, something which would have seemed to him under normal circumstances as a gross breach of self-control. The Dragons of Heaven had always been gentle and took what appropriate actions they could to see that he did not hurt himself, but allowed him to cry for as long as he desired. Yuzuriha often started crying herself when Fuuma was upset and would cradle his head and stroke his hair when he was loose enough to uncurl, and Sorata would sometimes support Fuuma on his shoulder and mutter friendly, soothing words along the lines of "It's all right, bro. Just get it all out. Real men know when to cry…" The time he had been in hysterics when Seiichirou and Karen had come to visit, Karen had cradled his head and sang softly to him for a long time in mellow, alto tones, and Seiichirou had covered him with his jacket and rubbed his shoulders soothingly when Karen had noted that he was shivering. Arashi and Subaru had little, reserved ways of caring, though Fuuma detected a certain icy detachment in Subaru, though he couldn't blame Subaru considering that he was the reason the onmyouji was going blind, and in all situations, it was a given that Kamui was overseeing things and doing everything that he thought was possible to help. Fuuma often found a cup of tea pushed under his nose as soon as he was coherent enough to sit up, and he often fell into a dead, dreamless asleep after drinking anything they offered him.

Fuuma shrugged off edge-buzzing, impending thoughts of guilt and pity over his degenerate and fallen state. He could not allow his mind to become burdened. He would be far easier to sense that way. He paused atop the stairs and listened, trying to sense if anybody was downstairs watching TV or scrounging for a midnight snack. He thought for a moment. He knew the nature of kind people such as these; they would try to track him down, and CLAMP Campus would use every one of their abundant resources to help them. He frowned. Right, they were all super-human, the campus could get information on whatever it wanted, and it was not as if Fuuma did not stand out in the first place. He inwardly cursed his abnormal height and eye color and padded down to the living room. If he did not at least give leaving his best shot, he would never be able to live with himself.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Fuuma swore. The lights went on, and Kamui lowered his hand from the light switch on the wall behind him. He was sitting in a plush chair edged adjacent with the kitchen doorjamb with his chin on one hand, obviously irritated and tired. Fuuma stared and shifted his backpack to his other shoulder awkwardly.

"Hey, Kamui."

"…hey." Kamui blinked, watching him warily. Things had been awkward between them ever since Fuuma had returned, and their conversations since their initial conversation in the hospital had been, to the best of Fuuma's memory, reduced to small talk and frequent inquiries about his health. They had not had one real conversation since then, though Fuuma knew a great deal of that was his fault for being listless and unwelcoming. He sighed.

"How did you know I was coming?"

"I have my sources. Put that bag down. You're not going anywhere."

"I have to—"

"Don't you even start with me. I know what you're going to say. Sit."

Fuuma glanced around the room, dropped his bag, and sat in the closest facing armchair. He looked around awkwardly, and then lowered his eyes, wondering whether or not he should just break and run or hear Kamui out. _I know what he's going to say. He'll say everything and anything about how it's not your fault, etc, but you cannot let yourself be swayed. You have to leave. This is for his sake, Fuuma. Don't be selfish. But this might be your final goodbye…_

"I am leaving no matter what you say, Kamui."

"You can't!" Fuuma looked up. Kamui's calm expression was cracking. "You… can't, Fuuma. I won't let you! I refuse to let you go! Not now! You belong here! You're just being stupid; you can't honestly think that leaving would be the best for everybody!"

"Kamui," he said patiently, "I'm _dangerous_. Arashi-san seems to be the only one who is willing to agree with that."

"Did _she_ tell you to leave?"

"No, but she has implied—"

Kamui stood up. "I'll kill her—"

"No, you will not." Fuuma stood and gently pushed Kamui back into his chair. "Listen. I would have left anyway, because I agreed with her on this before we even talked. It isn't fair for me to stay here. You all have already sacrificed so much and taken care of me, and this is the least I can do for you now. Especially after… all I did…"

"SHUT UP!"

"_Shhhh!_"

"No, shut up! That was me! That was all me! Not you!" Kamui crossed his arms and glared sidelong at the floor. Fuuma sat back down and watched. "…if anything, I'm the danger. That sick stuff came from inside my head."

"We all have that inside us, Kamui. You were just unlucky enough to be the one to have it projected without your consent."

"What, did Subaru tell you that shit?"

"All right, so… it's none of our faults, all right? I know that." Fuuma swallowed. "It's not fair. I've pouted and pitied myself over that enough. I was just unlucky, and regardless of that, I am still the volatile one. I don't want to leave, Kamui, but I don't feel clean staying here. It's just not right after all I did. I mean, I know it wasn't really… me, but it was my hand…"

"Oh, shut up. I'm willing to take the risk to have you here."

Fuuma arched his eyebrows. Kamui was still glaring at the wooden floor.

"…you would be willing to do that to yourself?"

"You're so dense, Fuuma." Kamui mumbled. "You are so fucking dense."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Fuuma thought for a moment. "… but, regardless of that, and it does mean a lot to me, it's… well, more than I deserve, considering, but…"

"Kotori would want it too."

"And look at where it got her," Fuuma snapped. He clenched his fists and pressed them into his eyes, swallowing a forming pain in his throat. He took a shuddering breath. _No. No, do not start this now. You've cried your heart and soul out over her already. Not in front of Kamui. Do not do this. It's over._

"I know she would rather die by your hand than be apart from you," said Kamui.

"Kamui, come on." Fuuma fought to keep his voice level. "It wasn't an issue or a choice until it happened."

"I'm making an example! I'm saying… like, if she could have known… she would make the same choice as me."

"How do you know?"

"I just _do_, Fuuma!"

"And the other people here? Have you considered them? They're in danger too, Kamui."

"They would say the same thing. They all like you, no matter what you did. Because… well, _you_ didn't do anything. That was a monster using your body. _You_, I mean _Monou Fuuma_, they all love."

"Kamui, _come on_, stop it. You know this is a bunch of bullshit. Be reasonable."

"YOU be reasonable!"

"You are the last person on earth to give lectures about being reasonable."

"Oh, yeah? Well, you—"

"Wow, you really haven't changed at all. Well, all right, you've changed a lot since stuff started happening. You're… I don't know…" Fuuma looked up and blinked rapidly to keep from tearing up. "…more mature." Kamui snorted. "I'm serious; I just don't know how to explain it. You're… more emotional."

"_More emotional_?"

"I'm trying to say something, all right? You're… argh, I don't know." Fuuma glanced at Kamui, who was now scowling. "Look, could we please just not fight over this right now? I don't want my last conversation with you to be like this."

"This is _not_ going to be our last conversation! Don't talk like that!"

"…how have you been doing?"

Kamui paused warily and took a deep breath, thinking. "…fine. Just, fine. You?"

"You haven't been acting fine." Fuuma settled back in the chair and rested his chin on his hand. "We haven't really talked ever since you got back to Tokyo, at all. I mean, at first you were locked up and standoffish, and when you finally opened up to me so much was going on that we didn't have time to talk about anything but the battles. I guess when wars end we have leisure to talk about everyday things again."

"…what do you mean?"

"What happened to you? It's been… what, nine years since we really just talked? What happened in your life up north? How have you changed; what have you seen and learned? What do you want to talk about?"

Kamui blinked, poleaxed. Fuuma shrugged.

"I… made varsity basketball freshman year."

"I know. I went to a game last year, if you remember."

"Yeah, that's right. I know it was just because I was so tall, so I spent every day after school practicing so that I would have the skills to really do something for the team."

"But you're so good."

"Yeah, well, that's three seasons of busting my ass. It didn't come naturally. People think that I have a natural knack for any sports, but I don't. I'm a fast runner, but when it came to shooting… I couldn't hit building in front of me for the longest time."

"That's kind of funny."

"Yeah, which is why I didn't make the team at CLAMP Campus. They're all naturally brilliant. I just couldn't compete."

"Yeah, in more ways than one. Don't you love being at the bottom of the class?"

"Yeah, and all this time I thought I was pretty bright."

"You're smarter than me; shut up."

"You just never studied. You don't know that. Well, anyway, here I really _am_ the meathead jock, and not even much of a jock at that." He thought for a moment. "You know, that's kind of depressing. I'm repeating my second year _and_ I'm at the bottom of the class."

"Well, that means that you get to be in my class."

"Yeah, the company is good." He smiled at Kamui, and Kamui smiled back. _What. Am. I. Doing? I have to leave. Do not get comfortable._ "I'm just glad the school let me enter even with such a sloppy record and having to repeat a year for extended truancy. It's not as though I had a good excuse for it, either. I was being a bad boy. You know, destroying the world."

"Imonoyama pulled some strings for you." A flicker of sadness crossed Kamui's features. Fuuma cursed himself for even mentioning his alternate identity. "The campus has been incredibly generous to us…"

* * *

"He should leave."

"Nee-chan, stop it."

"He was making the right decision." Arashi crossed her arms and looked around the stairwell corner into the living room where Kamui and Fuuma were talking with growing comfort. She and Sorata were both in nightclothes and had been listening in on the entire conversation. "And the closer he gets to Kamui, the greater the risk of having him snap back to what he was. They have no idea how delicate this balance is."

"I think if Kamui-kun is willing to take the risk, we should support him. The poor kid's had his entire life ripped apart at the seams, Nee-chan. We can at least give him his friend back."

"Oh, and what about everybody else in the house?"

"What's a little danger amid friends for the sake of love?"

Arashi sighed and walked back up the stairs. Sorata followed her.

"Nee-chan, come on…"

"You're so immature."

* * *

"You're not serious."

"Yeah, I am."

"I'm sorry; that just doesn't seem like the Kamui I used to know at all."

"Well, you know, we all grow up. I kind of went hard. Some stuff was going on in my life, you know?"

"…you got into fights with motorcycle gangs."

"Yeah. I was a real little punk for a long time. There were times when I showed up for school maybe three times a week, no joke. I usually hung out under the local bridge and smoked. I quit, though. But you know what I was really doing under that bridge most of the time? Reading and daydreaming. Hardcore, ain't it?"

Fuuma smiled. "Kotori predicted that you might still be a bookworm. I didn't really believe her, but… huh. You know, I still am too."

"We should start borrowing books from each other again."

"Do you have any scars or anything? You know, from your glorious gangster life?"

"No. I heal too damn fast, and I always won anyway."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Hey! I can put up a fucking good fight."

"Because you can use magic."

"Yeah… so?" Kamui snorted. "There's nothing wrong with using what you have in a fight."

"In short, you don't mind fighting dirty."

"Nope."

"So, is that where you learned to cuss so badly?"

"Come on! I'm not that bad."

"Oh, yeah. Right. Every other word out of your mouth is 'fuck'."

"Hey!" Kamui pointed at Fuuma and leaned back in his chair. "I've gotten fucking better! I don't cuss so fucking much anymore! I'm fucking clean now! I don't even fucking smoke!"

Fuuma started laughing. Kamui grinned and laughed as well. They had both loosened up to the point that everything was funny, just for that sake alone. _Come on, _Fuuma thought. _You have to get out of here. Stop the party. _

"Hey…" said Kamui. "We've been talking for three straight hours."

"That's it? It feels more like half an hour."

"I know! And I still have so much I have to tell you! Hey." Kamui nodded out the window. "See, the sun is starting to rise."

"Yeah." _Shit. Almost everybody around here is an early riser; they'll be up soon. I'm not going to get out of here tonight. The campus will be too well lit soon. Somebody will ask questions. For all I know they have a Monou Fuuma Watch program in place. Damn it. Kamui, you've ruined it._

"Damn, we have to be at school in a few hours," said Fuuma.

"I'm not going to class today."

"Yeah."

Fuuma watched Kamui. The latter was tapping his fingers on the chair arm, impatient about something, and staring out the windows surrounding the back door. Dawn was beginning to cast light on the burgundy room. The shadows stood out in sharper relief. The midnight-blue sky was edging pale purple.

"…what are you thinking about?"

"Hm. Oh, nothing." Kamui blinked and continued to stare outside. "Fuuma, are you gay?"

"…what?"

"I mean, I'm not asking because you act like it or anything—actually, I'm asking because you don't—but I was just wondering. It seems like everybody I know all of a sudden is queerish in some way. You know, bi or something."

"…seriously?"

"Yeah. Well, are you?"

"Yes."

Kamui's eyes widened. Fuuma blinked and cleared his throat awkwardly.

"I… well, I'm bisexual. Yeah. Weird, huh? I never really brought it up, because… do you think it's—"

"No! No, no, it's perfectly fine!" Fuuma jerked, startled. Kamui whirled in his seat and leaned forward. "I'm the same!"

"No way. Seriously?"

"I'm… yeah, that's great! I was afraid you'd think I was a creep!"

"What? God, no. Not you. It doesn't matter to me, or wouldn't even if I was straight. You're just Kamui, you know?"

"_Just…_ Kamui?"

"But… huh, that's odd. I had an idea, but…" Fuuma gave a low whistle. "What are the odds? I'm the only one I've ever known. I had no idea you were bi."

"Great! See, we still have a lot to learn about each other!" Kamui was grinning. Fuuma gave him an awkward smile in return. "Which means that you are staying. There's just no question about it anymore. There's no point in running, Fuuma. I'll track you down. I'll follow you to the ends of the earth. You know I can do it."

"You certainly make tall promises."

"I'm in the mood to make tall promises. I'm in the mood to do things that I would kick myself for doing later. In short, I'm in a mood."

"Do things such as what?"

Kamui shrugged and stood up. Fuuma yawned and stretched his linked hands above his head.

"Well, I should probably get dressed and run my laps—"

He opened his eyes and tilted his head straight. Kamui was nose-to-nose with him. Fuuma blinked and made a small noise of question in the back of his throat.

"Um… Kamui?"

Kamui took a deep breath and slid his fingers through Fuuma's black hair to cradle his head. Fuuma shuddered impulsively and screwed his eyes shut, drawing back. He had a brief flashback of somebody holding his head in the same manner, accompanied by the sensation that he was on a bed. It made his stomach crawl. He twitched his face away.

"Fuuma…" Kamui said quietly.

"_What are you doing?_"

"…fuck it."

"Kamui!—"

Kamui pressed his lips into Fuuma's, keeping them closed, then pulled away and untangled his hands from Fuuma's hair. Fuuma opened his eyes and gave a small bark of shock. He blinked rapidly to clear his head of the flashbacks. Kamui stood over him, hands out as though expecting to have to hold Fuuma together somehow, expression rapidly degenerating from determined to horrified. He glanced up the stairwell and froze.

"Oh… shit." Kamui said quietly.

"…um…uh…" Fuuma glanced up the vacant stairwell. "…huh?"

Kamui balked, took hesitant steps toward the staircase, turned, and rushed out the back door with a hurried and vague promise that he would be back. Fuuma made a late noise of protest and reached feebly after Kamui, then allowed his hand to drop and flopped back into the chair. His mind was full of static.

"…what the hell just happened?"

* * *

Subaru pivoted at the lip of the stairwell and walked back into the hallway, fighting an impulse that felt like the need to vomit. His nerves were just beginning to register the information and degenerate. He attempted to maintain his bland, initial shock long enough to walk back to his room in one piece.

_That is the last time I trust my instincts when they tell me to walk downstairs. All right. You didn't just see that. You did not just see that. You did not just see that…_

He subconsciously retrieved the image that had greeted him upon turning the corner in the stairwell and stopped, taking a steadying breath. He stared at the ground and felt the rough texture of the white wall, running his fingers up and down the grain. His heart started pounding painfully.

_Oh my god. I knew it all along. _


	14. The Package

_Clever got me this far  
Then tricky got me in  
Eye on what I'm after  
I don't need another friend  
Smile and drop the cliché  
'Till you think I'm listening  
I take just what I came for  
Then I'm out the door again (1)_

* * *

"_There is nothing to worry about. All I have to do is make an appearance to Subaru-kun, and he will be straightened back out. This nonsense will stop. Really, I should have kept better tabs on him. I have been busy lately. This problem never would have arisen."_

"_So, you are admitting a preference for a human being?"_

"_No." Seishirou sipped his tea and set it back in its saucer. "Once prey has been marked by the Sakurazukamori, the prey is his to guard. It is a matter of honor. Possessiveness is an… inclination acceptable to the Sakurazukamori. I can indulge in it safely."_

"_Safely, huh?" Fuuma was watching Seishirou levelly over his circular sunglasses with his chin resting on steepled hands. "Indulging in any other sort of 'inclination' would not at all be dangerous to a man who truly had no emotions."_

"_Your crepe is probably getting cold. It would be a shame to waste it." _

"_Stop dodging. I would say that in the past nine years, you have become a bit unhinged."_

"_I was being methodically unhinged from birth. The effects of such… 'inclinations' do enough to people who are well-hinged to begin with."_

"_You_ are _being frank all of a sudden. I bet you have never opened this much with anybody."_

"…_I've finally grown up." Seishirou took a long sip of tea and pushed his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose with a gloved forefinger. "I am aware of my shortcomings and am trying to patch them. And, while I am being brutally frank and before I get my head back, I have never had a true confidant in my life."_

"_You think stalking Subaru is going to help you quell off love or something?"_

_Seishirou flinched. Fuuma smiled. "What, you're still skirting around that idea? I thought you said you had grown up and become self-aware, or something."_

"_I do not love."_

"_Right." Fuuma snorted and started laughing. Seishirou took a silent, calming breath through his nose and drank the rest of his tea. His smile had evaporated. _

"_What?" said Fuuma. "I'm sure people have accused you of that before. Why the long face? Are you losing your edge, old man? Have nine years to think about your defeat made you sit up and realize what you are for the first time? You're a human, Sakurazuka Seishirou, and merciless and cold though you may be, you do see somebody as more than an object. This isn't news to you, either. You've known all along. You even had to end the bet a few days early—"_

"_I didn't know your tabs were so immaculate." Seishirou summoned years of practice to smooth his face into a smile and absently smeared ice cream around the crust of his crepe with the back of his spoon, clenching his opposite fist painfully beneath the table. "And you are incorrect."_

"_Desire to protect honor is very much an arbitrary and illogical emotion in itself, you know." Fuuma snorted and licked ice cream off of his spoon. "…pathetic. Still protesting and running to this very day. You're defeated, old man. You're a coward and a fake."_

_Seishirou smiled across the table and fantasized on ripping Fuuma's guts out. Fuuma stopped with the spoon's basin fully in his mouth and tapped the table with his opposite hand. "Ah, yes," he said around the spoon. He pulled it out. "I was going to say that you are henceforth forbidden to see, talk to, or otherwise have any contact with Sumeragi Subaru ever again, under the pain of his death." He lifted the crust of his crepe and examined its contents. "I didn't ask for strawberries…"_

_

* * *

_

_Time to feed the monster  
I don't need another friend  
Comfort is a mystery  
Crawling out of my own skin  
Just give me what I came for_

_Then I'm out the door again (1)_

* * *

"…_what?"_

* * *

The breakfast table was unusually subdued and tense that morning. Kamui had not returned, and Subaru was sleeping uncharacteristically late. Fuuma ladled miso soup into his bowl from the communal pot and slurped, listening to Yuzuriha, Arashi, and Sorata talk, all of them dressed for school with their bags by their chairs. His senses were surprisingly acute given how much he had to think about at the moment.

"Segawa might know where he got to," said Sorata.

Inuki looked at his mistress, who suddenly appeared uncomfortable. Yuzuriha shrugged and looked down at the rice cooker over which she was leaning. "…he might."

"Yuzu-chan, is something going on with you and Segawa? I've heard some stuff…"

Arashi whacked Sorata on the arm, the latter of whom yelped. Yuzuriha shook her head and spooned white rice into a bowl. "Nothing. I don't know, maybe Subaru-san knows where he went."

"Subaru's still sleeping. Oi, Fuuma? Do you know where Kamui got to?"

Fuuma shrugged dully and ladled more soup into his bowl. "He said that he had some errands to run. He should be back soon."

"God, that early? Hope he won't ditch class again."

Inuki's ears pricked up. A few seconds later, Subaru walked down the stairs, still in rumpled nightclothes, and sat down heavily at the far end of the table. Fuuma looked up. Subaru looked horrible; he appeared to have been crying, and he smelled of smoke. Inuki sniffed the air and barked sharply. Yuzuriha looked up and sniffed.

"…SUBARU-SAAN!" Yuzuriha scrabbled out of her chair and knelt down next to him. He dully pulled one of the set bowls toward himself and stood to ladle rice. "You were smoking up there!"

"Subaru!" Sorata dropped his spoon. "No, man! Come on! You were doing so good! Come on, throw the packs out and keep with it! …wow, you look like hell. Did something happen?"

Arashi glared at Sorata, then turned back to Subaru. "What's wrong, Subaru-san?"

_He must have hurt himself with his eye again. _Subaru sat down silently and picked at his rice with his chopsticks. Fuuma frowned, forgetting Kamui for a moment. _No wonder he's been so sour with me lately. I can't blame him. Great, this makes me feel just wonderful. _

"Hey, Subaru-sempai," Fuuma said quietly. "I-um…"

Subaru froze and glared straight down at his rice. Fuuma swallowed. He had apologized profusely before, but found himself unable to stop no matter how many times Subaru told him not to feel at fault. "I… um… I'm very sorry. Yeah. I… uh…"

Subaru set his chopsticks across his bowl, stood, and took his breakfast onto the patio, brushing past Yuzuriha. The screen door slammed behind him.

"…that's it." Yuzuriha stood and ran up the stairs. "I'm getting rid of all of his packs!"

"He's, um…" Sorata leaned back in his seat to look through the screen door. "…lighting up outside…"

Yuzuriha growled and dashed onto the patio, slamming the screen door on Inuki, who darted through after it bounced harmlessly against his flank. Fuuma listened to Yuzuriha scream at Subaru for a few moments, the latter of whom was not responding, before settling back down and picking at his rice.

_I really should just leave…_

* * *

_Peripheral long the package  
Don't care to settle in  
Time to feed the monster  
I don't need another friend (1)_

* * *

"… _So, as you see, this will be upheld even after_ 'I' _am gone. You_ know _how unbreakable the conditions that permit that are. The Sakurazukamori does not have the power to challenge the upholding, and the moment you try, Sumeragi Subaru dies anyway. Any questions?"_

_Seishirou's face was drained. He was coming as close to gaping as he had in years. _

"…_no," he said quietly._

"_Ah, so, this is what you are like when you lose control of a situation." Fuuma leaned back in his seat and watched sardonically over his glasses. "You learn a lot about who a man really is when you take away his upper hand."_

"…_heh." Seishirou summoned years of training and discipline to push his glasses back up his nose and smile, though the effect was weak. "Subaru-kun will always be the captive of the sakura."_

"_Do you really believe that? I think the person who was always the most confident of that was he, and even he is finding himself able to move on when you aren't always breathing down his neck."_

"_Why are you doing this?"_

"_Oh, yes. I knew you were going to ask that." Fuuma sat up and poured himself more tea. "Somebody wished it."_

"…_what? Wished what? Who?"_

_Fuuma clicked his tongue and wagged his finger. "Can't tell you. Let's just say that somebody's wish is for Subaru to be happy, and he as sure as hell cannot be happy as long as you are in his life. And since you are too much of a programmed coward to admit what you truly wish, deep, deep down, beneath all of that 'want to be killed by him' nonsense, this person's wish takes precedence over yours. Sorry. Your ticket is up. You are henceforth severed from the Sumeragi."_

_Seishirou quietly controlled his breathing and tapped his fingertips on the tabletop, forcing himself to think clearly. His own body was starting to betray him; his stomach had long since dropped out, and his heart was pounding._ These are just adrenaline reactions. My hunt is about to take a twist, that is all. That is all. You're mine, Subaru, now and forever. You will pay for this. You know that you are mine. Oh, you bad, bad boy. I might not be able to see you right now, but I can leave my mark on everybody you know—

_Seishirou stopped tapping abruptly and grasped the tail end of his thought. He thought for a few minutes as Fuuma finished his own crepe and took liberties with Seishirou's half-finished desert. _

…that's it! _Seishirou brought his attention back to the present and pushed Fuuma's hand away from his food. "…fine. All right. I know where my limits are. I will make no contact with the Sumeragi as long as the bar is valid."_

"_You're a smart boy."_

"—_not yet, anyway."_

_Fuuma blinked, flash-examined Seishirou's mind, and nodded, smiling. He sat back. "Ah, you found the back door. You _are _a smart boy."_

"_I know." Seishirou smirked and folded his gloved hands on the table, settling back in his seat and resting his ankle on the opposite knee. _Hah, 'back door'. Funny. This should work out. No big deal. Just time to pull the bells out again. It's fine, Seishirou. It'll all be fine. "_First, I need you do to me a favor..." _

* * *

"Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Shit-shit-shit-shit—you fucking IDIOT, Shirou, you blew it shit-shit-shit-shit—"

Kamui's phone beeped and buzzed against his hip. He lifted his head from his hands and blinked in the glaring noon sunlight. He had spent the entire day after kissing Fuuma and dashing from the house sitting in the furthest top corner of the campus stadium, well hidden from notice in the shadows and still in the rumpled uniform he had worn all day yesterday. He had not slept, changed, or eaten since dinner with Seishirou the previous evening. All morning, he had been halfheartedly watching the PE classes run laps (thankfully, none of the teachers wanted to run stadiums), brooding, and muttering mantras while pressing on his eyes. Thus far, both Yuzuriha and Sorata had tried to call him, both leaving messages asking where he had gone and why he was not in class, and Yuzuriha had sent him four text messages begging him to talk to her. Kamui had gone back and forth on Fuuma's lack of communication from the theory that he was just feeling understandably awkward to the idea that he was disgusted and wished never to talk to Kamui again.

Kamui sighed and pulled the phone off of his belt, smoothing his hair back out of his eyes.

1 new message – Subaru

"…oh, fucking _hell_."

Kamui sighed and pressed the option button marked as 'read' on the LCD screen with his thumb.

hey can we talk where are you?

Kamui stared at the message and thought. Subaru was the last person he wanted to see at the moment, especially until he had a chance to have a very long talk with Fuuma. He could predict what sorts of things Subaru would ask, and whether or not Kamui answered truthfully, things were going to end sourly.

"Yeah, that'd be fun," Kamui muttered. " 'Hey, Subaru, I know you were on the stairs last night; sorry about that, but I haven't had a chance to talk to Fuuma yet, and if things go well, I'd rather go with him than you. Yeah, you're second choice. Sorry for being the second person to make you feel worthless and break your heart, but you've been a real drag lately. I know you were hoping this would yank you out of your depression, but it didn't help. Sorry. How are you?' Jesus Christ, this is fucked up…"

Kamui sighed. A coach blew her whistle on the field below, and several girls started running around the track. He scanned the ranks of girls for Yuzuriha and Inuki, the latter of whom would sniff him out in an instant and bring his mistress running up the stadium, and sighed when he concluded that she was not in this PE class.

"Whatever. I'm getting out of here."

Kamui pressed the select button marked 'reply' right above on the screen and punched his reply with his thumb.

Sorry in class cant talk busy after school project ttyl sorry i saw you last night talk later im sorry

Kamui sent the message, clipped the phone back on his pants, and sighed heavily.

"God, I'm a coward." He stood and stretched out his back, wincing at the dull pain his shoulder was still giving every now and then. He dashed down the stadium stairs and walked to the nearby monorail station. Imonoyama had given Kamui clearance to leave the campus at any time without question, and had never lifted that clearance even with the end of the war.

_There better be a fucking train to Shinjuku that isn't packed at this hour. Why the hell am I going back there, anyway?_

* * *

_Eye on what I'm after  
I don't need another friend  
Nod and watch your lips move  
If you need me to pretend  
Because clever got me this far  
Then tricky got me in  
I'll take just what I came for  
Then I'm out the door again (1)_

* * *

"_And will you be able to follow through with this without cracking?"_

"_Of course. It will be just like old times."_

"_I wouldn't use that as a good example." The corner of Seishirou's mouth twitched. "What? Subaru was _different_? Oh, there's preference once again. Either way, I have you nailed."_

"_This is merely a matter of honor and boredom. Insofar as Subaru himself is concerned, I am indifferent."_

"_You seem so eager to prove that. You do realize that nobody but Subaru believes you on that issue, don't you?"_

"_People are mistaken. I guess there is something satisfying out of fantasizing on the assassin falling for his prey, but they are sorely wrong in this case. People believe what they want to believe."_

"_And you of all people would know that best, wouldn't you?"_

"_Shut up."_

"_Have you lost your edge, old man? Can you play this game again without losing it? Or has your last experience scared you off?"_

"_Why not? It will keep things amusing. I have had no new games to play lately. Besides, I have nothing to be afraid of."_

* * *

"He doth protest too much."

"He doth do it more than he did a month ago, anyway." Yuuto stretched the kinks out of his back and cracked his neck. "I always knew he was psychotic, but… damn. Now it's really showing."

"Well, you take away a man's ability to be aloof and hold the upper hand, and watch him crumble. Then you know what people really want."

"I swear to god I've heard that before."

"Here, in a sense." Satsuki cleaned her glasses on her uniform skirt. She and Yuuto were sitting at the same table in the crepe parlor at which Seishirou and Fuuma had sat just over a month ago, intentionally, of course. When they were watching retroactive satellite video feed of Seishirou's and Fuuma's conversation a few weeks after it had occurred, Yuuto had commented that the crepes looked good and that he wanted to try them someday. He also thought it would be just damn funny to sit at the same table, but Satsuki missed the humor.

"Why are we still watching and discussing all of this drama, anyway?"

"Because we have nothing better to do, and because Fuuma's relative sanity is kind of important to us, all things considered."

"I know. It was a rhetorical question." Satsuki tapped her forearm. _Just ramble. Talk about something, anything. Don't think about Yuuto._ "It's odd. I always had this image of Seishirou that… well, I knew that he was programmed and deluded, but I didn't know that he was so… I don't know… introspective. He doesn't seem that way at all." She sipped her tea. "This is excellent tea."

"Mine is better."

Satsuki suppressed a smile and tipped the cup over her mouth to hide the twitch. _God, he looks good. Why does he always have to dress so well? It's distracting. _"…I just thought he would be more… hedonistic. Sensory. I don't know, smoking and raping girls without a second thought, and still being incredibly self-possessed and convinced that he was an automaton. He's too smart. That's his problem. If only he were dumber, he would be more stable."

"Poor guy. I still think he's a complete idiot." Yuuto rapped his fingernails on the tabletop and looked around. "How long does it take to make crepes, anyway?"

"We've been here five minutes. Be patient."

"I've had people tell me that for twenty-three years, and nothing changes." Yuuto gave Satsuki an impish smile. Satsuki tipped her nearly-empty cup over her mouth again and pretended to drink deeply. _Yuuto, god damn you, stop doing that. You look too good when you—no! Don't even think along those lines. Calm. He's just Kigai Yuuto, your co-worker. Well, no longer co-worker, but friend with whom you still talk and hang out with all the time for no reason. _

She realized that Yuuto had been talking and looked up. "I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"I said I wonder what Seishirou would be like if he hadn't been programmed from birth to be a sociopath. Do you think he would be like he's been acting lately around Kamui? Maybe that mask of his is really something suppressed."

"Very suppressed. Irreversibly suppressed. He'll never really be like that. You are just as much nurture as nature, Yuuto."

"Do you really think so?"

"You're just trying to annoy me now. Don't be daft."

"Sorry, sorry. It was just a thought." Yuuto interlocked his hands and leaned forward on his shoulders, forearms flat on the table. "We were here to talk about other things, weren't we?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. Oh, and something that I've always wanted to say to you and finally worked up the courage to ask."

…_great. No. Not today. Finally, you get right to it._ Satsuki took a deep breath and poured more tea, feigning cool ignorance. She had prepared herself for this moment several times, mentally playing it out so that when it actually occurred she would be able to act with complete indifference, but despite that, her heart rate was accelerating. "Oh, really? And what is that?"

"Do you want to go out with me?"

_Yeah, called it._ Satsuki set the teapot down, hard, and looked up. Yuuto had the most genuine, open, vulnerable look Satsuki had ever seen on his face, something she anticipated but skimmed over in her mental practice since the idea made her too fluttery for her liking. She blinked. _So, that nonsense about your heart pounding and feeling your stomach drop out really is true. Damn it. Damn it. Damn you, Yuuto._

"What, like you couldn't tell that I'm in love with you?"

_Yes, you daft fool. But… oh my god._ Satsuki swallowed and thought of something to say. She took a shaking breath and a deep drink of tea, praying that she appeared far more stable and cool than she felt. _I want him. I want—no! No, no! Satsuki, stop this. This isn't you. No, it's stupid to keep denying that I feel. It's just stupid. Grow up, Satsuki.—No! No! –are you a coward, or not? Yes! No—I'm not, calm down. Calm—_She felt a familiar tremor in the building's electrical wiring and inwardly cursed. _BEAST! I've had it with you—_

"Satsuki-chan?"

"Yes?" _This is your chance to be happy. Don't be a cowa — damn it, BEAST, that is enough!_ Satsuki sensed the air conditioner short out. Machinery atop the ceiling vents whined and shut down. _I've had it, BEAST!—_

"Do you want to be my girlfriend?"

"Yes."

Satsuki watched Yuuto's expression change to surprise, then joy, and realized what she had just said. She gaped in horror and covered her mouth. _Shit! No! Oh no! Fuck! Goddamnit—_

"You do? You really do?"

"…yes." Satsuki continued to mentally swear. The air conditioner control panel on the wall over Yuuto's shoulder crackled, and the lights flickered. Satsuki had barely focused on the panel and begun a new string of curses at BEAST when Yuuto stood and leaned over the table, blocking her view of the panel with his soft-brown-clad shoulder, overlapped by his jacket lapels, and traced her jaw-line with his fingertips. His hand was shaking.

_BEAST, if you touch him, I'll—oh…god—_

Satsuki backed into the booth and fought the urge to duck under the table. Yuuto withdrew his hands a bit, obviously wounded.

"No! I mean…" Yuuto dropped his hand, confused. "No, Yuuto, it's fine." _It's VERY fine, honey. Perfectly fine. No, don't look like that, Yuuto. I'm sorry._ "It's just… I mean… I… uh…" She watched Yuuto's open, wounded expression grow more confused. _I feel sick. Oh god. I've really gotten myself into it._ "It's…"

"Excuse me…" the waitress said. She was standing over the table with their crepes balanced on a circular tray. She set the deserts in front of them and walked off briskly with an odd expression the origin of which Satsuki knew not, but she was sure that it was linked to their actions somehow. Satsuki sighed and looked back at Yuuto.

"Satsuki… do you want to talk?" Yuuto asked quietly. For the first time Satsuki could remember, he was not smiling to mask himself. Satsuki swallowed.

_God, he's pretty. All right…Okay. I can't believe I'm going to do this. No, don't think. Just—do it._

"Satsuki?"

_Go!_

Satsuki stood, leaned over the table, and kissed Yuuto's lips quickly before sitting back down. Now Yuuto was gaping. Satsuki blinked and swallowed, realizing what she had just done.

Fully realizing what she had just done.

_Oh my god._ She covered her mouth again. _I did not just—_

The lights exploded, popping and showering sparks and glass everywhere. The thermostat controller fizzled and shorted out. Satsuki cursed and ducked under the table with Yuuto. Several people in the restaurant yelped or screamed in shock.

"BEAST! STOP IT!"

Yuuto shifted his kneeling position, gathered Satsuki into his arms, and kissed her again, this time, properly.

All of the power in Tokyo shorted out.

* * *

_Lie to get what I came for  
Lie to get just what I need  
Lie to get what I crave  
Lie and smile to get what's mine (1)_

* * *

"…_let's make a bet."_

* * *

Kamui slumped down in the mahogany chair in Seishirou's office and tapped his phone against his thigh, waiting for it to vibrate and beep. The office was still well-lit with sunset oranges due to the open window behind Seishirou's desk, though the power had recently shorted out. Seishirou had rushed out on their conversation when the office's various lights had exploded and his laptop had burnt out, apologizing and saying something vague about starting backup power. Glass shards littered the floor, and the laptop was still smoking on its perch on the windowsill. Seishirou had mentioned in passing that the gas was poisonous and had originally left Kamui sitting right next to the smoldering wreck, but Kamui had moved the computer to its current location and himself to the opposite corner of the room.

_I cannot believe I am doing this._ Kamui looked at the neutral startup screen of his phone, half-hoping an arrived message had forgotten to announce itself. _Okay, _why _the hell do I talk to this guy, and _why _the hell do I listen to him when he asks me not to talk to Fuuma or Subaru about him at all? I cannot believe I invited Fuuma out here. Shirou, you idiot. That's going to be a picnic. 'Hey, Fuuma, meet the guy that raped you. Cheers.' I should just tell him who the fuck this guy is—_

Seishirou stuck his head in the door. "Hey, how far away was your friend when you last spoke to him?"

_I've lost my mind. That's all there is to it. I have fucking lost my mind._ "He was on the JR from the campus, just about here. Even if the JR went down he can walk here pretty fast." Kamui waved his phone. "I'm waiting for a reply."

"Assuming he gets out of the station alive. It's going to be a nightmare." Seishirou tapped his curled fingers on the flat of the door. "…I need help, and from both of you when he gets here, if he doesn't mind. One of our main aux power sources shorted. That was no blackout—that was a _huge_ spike. It blew through all of the surge protectors. We're running the most critical patients on our last source, but the others need tending to. I'm understaffed right now, and we have a lot of cut and scared patients on our hands."

Kamui stared blankly. "…this is the weirdest day of my life."

"That just means… never mind." Seishirou held the door open wide. "Please, come. It won't be too hard. I would greatly appreciate it."

Kamui's phone vibrated and chimed an electronic scale-run. He checked the message and clicked his tongue. Seishirou continued to tap his fingers on the door.

"…he's out of the station. Should be here soon."

"Good. Come on. You like animals, don't you?"

* * *

"All of the traffic lights are out. It's rush hour. Driving is going to be a nightmare."

"Yup."

"What are we doing again?"

"We're going to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Buildings."

"Ah! I see." Yuuto looked around, standing guard over Satsuki on the sidewalk and trying not to glance up her skirt, the latter of whom was on her belly in the driver's side floorboard of the first car they had found on the street. Satsuki had decrypted the car's radio-frequency unlock code and had already unhooked all communication devices so that once the power restarted, hoping that no vestiges of information had already made it to battery-powered devices before the spike, it would not communicate with all of the haywire equipment in the city and learn of her treason. She was now in the hotwiring stage. Yuuto glanced around the sidewalk and waved casually to some curious bystanders before leaning down to follow what she was doing. He was still giddy and almost fluttery, a sensation he enjoyed. _This is the best day of my life. This is so cool. I hope none of them goes to find a cop._

"Ah, we'll give our regards to Kanoe, then. Oh dear. I wonder how she's been doing."

"Probably terribly. We aren't going to make her any happier, either."

"No, we're not." Yuuto shrugged. Kanoe had a problem with anybody having a romantic connection that excluded her or that she did not manipulate for her own amusement. She also lusted after him. That always made things awkward.

"We're going to destroy BEAST," said Satsuki.

"…what?"

"He made himself vulnerable when he lost his temper and shorted out all of his power. The biggest blasts went to his own power sources, I'm sure, auxiliary and everything. Frankly, I'm surprised that his first move wasn't to kill you immediately; he's usually—" The car started. "—get in—far more efficient and logical."

"I don't know how to drive."

"Passenger side."

"…yes, ma'am." Yuuto grinned and nearly skipped around to the passenger's seat. Satsuki was already in and adjusting the seat to her height. "This is so exciting! Our first adventure as lovers, full of intrigue and danger and—"

"Shut up." Satsuki released the emergency brake, shifted into drive, and swerved into an alley. Yuuto braced himself against the door's armrest. "If we don't destroy BEAST before the power comes back up, you will die. You're lucky that you weren't ripped to rags by the wiring in that restaurant. He won't make the same mistake again."

"Jealousy really makes you do weird things, huh."

"BEAST is not a human."

"Then, why did he—"

"Never mind. It's hard to explain." Satsuki ran a red arrow and swerved into a main-street intersection, dangerously close to being broadsided by oncoming cars, whipped across the dashed turn curve as though her tail was the weighted end of a whip, smashed into a car's front light with her tail, and skidded off amid a cacophony of honks and breaks. Yuuto whistled and looked over his shoulder at the mess.

"Impressive, Miss. Wherever did you learn how to drive?"

"Find a map. There should be one somewhere in the car."

"Yes, ma'am." Yuuto opened the glove compartment and found a map amid the driver's insurance papers and sundry manuals and guidebooks. "…you would kill BEAST for me?"

"What does it look like I am doing?"

"But you loved BEAST. I mean… _loved_ BEAST."

"This is not the time for this. We'll talk later." Satsuki was swerving around cars and through lanes amid more honks and squealing breaks, constantly looking over either shoulder and in all mirrors. "Did you find that map?"

"I wonder how long it'll take the cops to get on us."

"_Map?_"

"Right, right. I know we're going the right general direction, but—"

"_Yuuto!_"

"Right. Sorry." Yuuto centered his weight as Satsuki violently swerved another car, and kissed her on the temple after he was able to steady himself. One of those persistent recently-resident butterflies fluttered in his stomach. _She's mine. My Satsuki. She's killing BEAST for me. Yes. Yes yes yes—_

"Directions?"

—_my Satsuki. Mine!_ He spread the map across his lap and quickly traced their location with his forefinger, still grinning. "…we missed a left back there. It will take longer if we keep going, but—"

Satsuki whip-swerved over the turning lane, tires squealing, and smashed another car's front lights with her taillights. She sped off in the opposite direction, dragging her taillight by its chords and raking up sparks.

"Woooo! Yeah!"

"Which _turn_, Yuuto?"

* * *

(1) A Perfect Circle – _Thirteenth Step_ – "The Package" 


	15. Crossing a Schism

"I still don't understand why you need these things." Nataku leaned on the inside of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Buildings' doors. He was hoisting a cardboard box of plastic explosives, watching security guards run around frantically trying to create a makeshift security protocol for the blackout. As Nataku had an amazing ability to avoid notice, they were paying him no mind. "But they are all here. I hope I was punctual, but you could have called ahead of time—"

Satsuki snatched the box from Nataku's arms and sprinted along the wall toward the stairwell. "—might I ask—" he continued.

"No, not much time," said Yuuto, who ran after Satsuki. Nataku followed on his heels. "Yes, we cleared it with Papa and Kanoe and everybody else you're going to ask about. I hope the SDF didn't give you much trouble."

"Their security systems were down. It was small work."

"…ah, that's why the cops weren't out…"

"What?"

"You might want to take cover." Yuuto threw open the heavy, metal stairwell door and charged down the concrete stairs. "Get Kanoe and pretty much anybody else out of here. This entire place is going to blow in a few minutes."

Nataku shoved the closing door open and ran through. "…what?"

"You do know what explosives are, don't you?" Yuuto grasped the metal handrail on the concrete wall dividing the fold in the coiled stairs and vaulted to the lower incline. "They basically do what you do to buildings, but bigger and with a lot more fire."

"What on earth—" Nataku vaulted after Yuuto.

"Elevators aren't working. Come along, get Kanoe, and get out."

"Yuuto-san, I don't understand—"

"Oh, it's easy. The foundation's going to blow, then the whole building after it. BANG. CRASH. Down to the earth. Now, do as I told you and scatter if you want to keep your pretty little head intact. There's a good boy—thing."

"You didn't clear this with Kanoe-san, did you?"

"Of course not."

"But you just said—"

"Which is why she has no idea and needs to clear out. Now, if you please, Nataku-san…"

Yuuto darted around the wall, out of Nataku's vision, and continued down the stairs always just a hair around the bend ahead, though Nataku was running at top speed. He moved his lips silently, trying to formulate a question, when he rounded the corner just in time to see the metal door to the faux storage closet slam at the bottom of the stairwell. He neatly jumped the final flight of stairs and landed in front of the door clearly marked for everybody to keep the hell out when the door slammed open in his face, smashing his nose.

Nataku yelled and covered his nose.

"_Nataku_! What the _hell_ is going on?" asked Kanoe.

_I have no idea._ "…Yuuto-san and Satsuki-san are going to use explosives on the foundation." Nataku pulled his hand away from his nose long enough to see crimson blood smeared across his white skin, winced, and shoved his palm back into his nose. Blood dripped down his neck and spattered his lavender Mandarin collar. "I think they are up to something suspicious."

"No kidding, Nataku. Where did they get explosives?"

"They said—"

"You got them?"

"Yes, but—"

"Never mind. Get in here." Kanoe threw the door open and charged into the closet, whose back wall was already swung on a center-point to reveal the Dragon of Heaven headquarters. "_Yuuto_! _Satsuki_! Get back here!"

* * *

_We can understand one another, but each of us is able to interpret himself to himself alone. _(1)

* * *

BEAST's chamber was pitch black and silent. Satsuki set the box of plastic explosives down and picked up the emergency flashlight she had set on top of the packages while in the "storage closet". She swept the flashlight beam across the silent hull and sighed, holding her collar over her nose. The cooling systems had shorted out, so the room was unusually warm (or rather, for once, unusually tolerable), and the room smelled noxiously of burned rubber. BEAST at least had the control to short out only its breakers and not itself, which both made the room clear of poisonous gas and still rendered BEAST a threat as soon as power was restored. Poisonous gas or no, the room was still heavy with smoke, which in itself was a problem. Thankfully the power surge had shocked the door in the unlocked position, so it stayed open without being wedged.

Satsuki nudged the box across the concrete floor with her instep and continued to survey BEAST's massive, still hull. She heard Yuuto run down the hall into the room and start coughing. Kanoe was not far behind him, screaming.

"God, that's thick smoke, Satsuki-chan," said Yuuto.

"Hold the flashlight." Satsuki handed Yuuto the flashlight and noted over her shoulder that he was covering his mouth with his jacket. "Follow me with it. We don't have much time."

"_Satsuki_!"

Satsuki turned around and watched Kanoe run up to her, coughing and sputtering. Since she was dressed for secretarial work she had enough cloth around her neck to be able to shield her nose and mouth while grabbing Satsuki's arm with her opposite hand. Satsuki jerked violently and winced. Kanoe was much stronger than she remembered. Yuuto grabbed Kanoe's wrist with his free hand and peeled her hand off of Satsuki's arm, freeing Satsuki to scale the iron-bar ladders crossing BEAST's hull. Satsuki coughed; the smoke was thicker the higher she climbed.

Satsuki blocked out Yuuto and Kanoe's escalating argument, Kanoe screaming and Yuuto replying with restrained calm, and concentrated on placing the explosives strategically, connecting their fuses, and scaling up and down with more materials from the box one-handed while the glaring flashlight followed her across the hull. She gave up on trying to both cover her mouth and carry explosives while climbing, so she breathed lightly. She shoved the lingering, languid memory of kissing Yuuto—the second time, _properly_—to the back of her mind and concentrated on her work. She was dangerously prone to languishing for several minutes, cheeks burning and mind shot, if she thought on it at all. Even though _his mouth was so warm and delicious, lapping, and he played with my hair—STOP IT. Stupid, rambling, lustful girl; you have a job to do._ Satsuki pushed her glasses up her nose distractedly and leaned down to stare at the explosive she was wiring. _The light is burning my cheeks. So hot—so damn hot—_

It was disorienting to be on BEAST's hull while he was so silent. There were no rhythms and moods coursing beneath his shell, no complex and brilliant messages and infinitely layered codes. Unlike humans, whose consciousness was so vague and illogical that thoughts could not cleanly be separated into analytical components, BEAST's ideas could be separated into logical and complete, interconnecting parts.

_Of course I'm more comfortable around BEAST. He's just that much easier to understand. Even his jealousy is simplistic, though that simplicity in itself is difficult to understand._ Satsuki held a fuse between her teeth and mashed one of the explosives into place. _I guess it's cowardice, in a way, to have spent my life hiding around something I can understand. Humans, huh? Boring, slow creatures, most of them, but unpredictable. I'm destroying the one thing I fully understood. Thought I understood, anyway. Everything else out there is unpredictable._

Satsuki remembered one conversation she had with BEAST about two girls in her class, best friends, who had gotten into a serious fight over who had the right to 'have' an anime character. It was one of BEAST and Satsuki's typically analytical and psychological conversations that reached several forced conclusions, all of which seemed good enough just to end the argument and get some kind of closure. But, as with all of their arguments, the conclusions seemed incomplete and flawed to Satsuki—a stretch riddled with holes—something she silently attributed to a feared lack of intelligence on her part. The inability to understand something had always terrified her. Yuuto claimed that she over-thought things when all she was trying to do was understand things, completely and fully, to which Yuuto merely replied that there were some things that she could not fully comprehend with analysis. Some things you just had to understand as a whole picture. They just _were_. You couldn't rip them into neat little categories and compartments like a puzzle or a formula. If you did, they lost their meaning, and meaning itself couldn't be dissected.

_Synchronicity._ _Quantums. Everything. No, explosives. What was the point of that?_ Satsuki was down on the floor at this point, Kanoe's protests nothing but dull noise behind her thoughts. She was still running her tongue on the roof of her mouth in a vague attempt to lap up vestiges of Yuuto's kiss. The persistent memory was still tickling the edge of her reason. She clicked her tongue sharply in self-reproach, picked up more explosives, and darted back up the hull, breathing lightly as possible and thinking. One thing that stuck with her most from that particular conversation with BEAST about the two girls was a differing conclusion they had reached: Satsuki thought that they paid so much attention to that celluloid idealization because real boys were merely not as perfect, but BEAST argued that they also loved the character because, since he existed in their heads, they fully understood him. They knew what his confusing gestures meant, knew what he was really thinking, deep down, and knew how he would feel and react to certain issues. They knew that he would be just fine with their obsession with yaoi and their own bisexuality, no questions asked, and would never try to change them. Though it seemed a trivial matter to Satsuki, it was of prime importance and comfort to the girls that the boy in question himself would be interested in men as well as women. Satsuki never understood that requirement. The girls' imaginary boyfriends would love all of their quirks and indulge their idiosyncratic fantasies. Real people, however, they did not understand fully, might not agree with them on all issues, and were, of course, also less than ideal. They did not know what real boys' expressions meant, nor did they intimately know what they were thinking or what they really thought about things. Real people were not indulged fantasies within and without. Besides, real boys could break their hearts. Beyond just not-being-real, characters would not.

_That rift is frightening, not knowing what other people are really thinking. People can lie to you, manipulate you, or just plain not understand you. You can never fully understand another person. There will always be a mental rift._ Satsuki tapped her fingernails on BEAST's hull for a moment, slowing, hunched over the final explosive. The girls had never paid attention to a real boy, no matter how nice he was or how much they connected in their conversations, and ended up dating each other because, as BEAST postulated, they had a connection in their fantasy lives, which must mean the closest correspondence in mentality. It was the safest. It was also the only basis for their relationship, but they never broke up for the comfort factor. They had gotten an unpleasant shock when they realized that each partner wasn't exactly as the other partner had imagined her, and that there were far more misunderstandings and miscommunications than they had bargained for. Each partner wasn't a fantasy; each one had a will of her own.

Being with BEAST had been predictable and comfortable. Satsuki fully understood him. He was logical, and she always knew what he was really thinking, insofar as he could "think". Though Yuuto was calling to her from the floor, voice muffled behind his jacket, she could not bring herself to face him.

Yuuto, or BEAST? BEAST was safer in the 'understanding' sense and, as long as she was faithful to him, he would never try to change her, and she would always understand him. Or, she would as long as she remained analytical and cold. Yuuto was a flesh-and-blood human. Sometimes he was dumb. Sometimes he was dull. He wasn't as quick as bright as Satsuki, though he had a certain intuitive grasp of things that allowed him to easily understand things Satsuki could not take on faith. He was often right about those things, too. He was spontaneous, romantic, deeply affectionate, irreverent, obnoxious, wrong, flawed, lazy, worthless, hedonistic to a fault, free-flowing, and unselfish.

BEAST was selfish. BEAST would never let her go. Yuuto would. BEAST gave her no free will. Yuuto did. BEAST got irritated when she had internal emotional conflicts, which he considered illogical and pitiful. Yuuto encouraged her humanity. _So, which one really is the more accepting, Satsuki?_ Satsuki shielded her eyes with her forearm and glared down into the flashlight beam. Yuuto's silhouette was an ink-black eclipse, though Satsuki could tell that he was staring up at her, and Kanoe was barely visible as a struggling shadow.

_You have one last chance, Satsuki. Yuuto, or BEAST? _

She and Yuuto would not always understand each other, and might often feel lonely because of it. She and Yuuto would miscommunicate, argue, hurt one another, confuse one another, and make each other cry. They might end up with broken hearts and nothing else to show. They would know enough about each other's faults to exploit them in the heat of an argument. They would say unforgivable things and snipe at one another in spite. They would both be vulnerable, frightened, and sometimes quite unstable. They were both going to have to learn to let down their defenses and trust, even if that trust was sometimes broken. They were going to lie to each other.

_Are you a coward, Satsuki? Are you going to end up like those girls? _

In the end, it might be worth it. BEAST could never offer that chance.

… _BEAST is just a coward, like me. It's so much harder to accept people when you don't fully understand them than when you do. Yuuto isn't a coward like us. Yuuto really is… accepting. That's what acceptance _is_, isn't it? Accepting something even if you don't fully understand it? Respecting it?_

"Satsuki?" yelled Yuuto.

_Maybe I'll learn to be comfortable with that someday, like Yuuto. Hell, he seems a lot happier than either of us._

"Satsuki! Get down here—"

_I've made up my mind, BEAST. Good bye._

"Satsuki! The power!"

Satsuki swore and lodged the final fuse into its putty decisively. Though she knew it felt like far more time had elapsed than actually had—probably a few minutes at most—it might be the determining factor of Yuuto's survival. She stared at BEAST's silent hull, dismayed by their sudden anticlimactic breakup without even one last chance at a conscious word, and brushed aside a vague urge to give BEAST one last kiss. She scaled down the hull, snatching the joystick-shaped trigger out of the cardboard box and Yuuto's hand with her other hand, and pulled him out the door after her, half-dragging Kanoe in the process.

"Come on!"

Kanoe stumbled over her high-heels and cursed , still protesting. Satsuki brushed past Nataku, who had been eavesdropping in the doorway and covering his nose with his jacket both to stop his bleeding and shield smoke, and yelled for him to follow them if he wanted to live. Nataku followed and caught Kanoe as she almost fell once again.

The lights in the narrow hallway flickered on.

"…GO!" Satsuki yanked on Yuuto's arm, trying to haul him in front of her, and awkwardly maneuvered behind him as he tried to oblige her. He dropped Kanoe and stumbled forward as Satsuki pushed him up the hallway. "GO! RUN!"

Yuuto ran. BEAST's machinery started to whine to life down the hallway, barely audible through its concrete bunker. A blast of cold, pearly air gushed down the hallway; the cooling system was back on. Nataku supported Kanoe on his shoulder, the latter of whom brushed him off impatiently and grabbed Satsuki by the collar.

"What the hell is—"

"DON'T TAKE THE ELEVATOR!" Satsuki yelled after Yuuto, twisting her face away from Kanoe.

"_Satsuki_!"

"I am going to push this trigger with or without us down here as soon as Yuuto gets out of the building, do you understand?" Satsuki swallowed. The adrenaline rush masked out an impending stomachache. She knew that she was bluffing, but Kanoe never responded well to bluffs under stress. She forced her voice to be calm. "Now, you can harass me later. Let's just get out of the building alive."

"You two are _quite_ a cute item, you know that?"

Satsuki watched Kanoe carefully. The latter was debating, furrowing her brows in thought and clutching Satsuki's jacket collar more tightly. Satsuki looked around the hallway. BEAST's machinery was whining to its usual pitch. She prayed that Yuuto had already cleared the building.

_I have to be close to him. He can't escape until I push the trigger._

She heard explosions on the above floors of what she assumed was wiring breaking free of concrete walls. She cursed loudly and kicked Kanoe in the stomach, breaking free as the older woman yelled and collapsed in pain, and bolted through the closet and up the stairwell.

The ground floor was spattered with concrete chips and dust, wiring ripped free of the walls like thick veins and splayed in the air sluggishly. People were screaming and running out of the building. Satsuki looked up, praying; Yuuto was not being held in the building—good—she looked outside—ah—the wires were attacking him outside, sleepy and sluggish but enough of a threat, but he was faring with impressive dexterity considering that his powers had been lost, dodging and jumping over wires that attempted to trip him. The car that they had driven onto the lawn and abandoned was still outside, yet untouched by the police.

As soon as BEAST got back to full power, Yuuto would have no chance. Satsuki glanced over her shoulder and noted that Nataku and Kanoe and had sprinted after her, Kanoe still nursing her stomach, and ran outside. They would follow. She was going to blow the basement _now_.

"Yuuto! Get away from the building!"

Yuuto ran toward the street and stumbled into screeching traffic. The power lines along the street crackled and broke free of their poles eagerly, whipping and aiming themselves at their target. They were getting more energetic.

"All right, little miss newfound humanitarian," Kanoe hissed, drawing close to Satsuki as they rushed after Yuuto across the chaotic street. Cars that had not already stopped for Yuuto braked loudly for them amid more honks and insults. The power and phone lines snaked above their heads eerily. Most of the drivers had stopped or slowed down to observe the odd spectacle. "Are you really willing to kill thousands of innocent people for the sake of one man, who has killed people himself?"

"They won't die."

"But Yuuto-san said…" said Nataku.

"Do you know how far underground BEAST is?" Satsuki smiled grimly. "How reinforced his walls are? There's a good reason for that. And besides, I never said that I was a newfound humanitarian, anyway."

Satsuki steadied herself on the opposite sidewalk and stared across the street. Kanoe stopped beside her with Nataku, disheveled, and brushed her hair out of her flushed face.

"It wouldn't stop you if it wasn't, would it?"

"Nope." Satsuki pressed the trigger. Kanoe stiffened, waiting for an impact. "I'm pretty selfish when it comes right down to it—"

The ground shook violently. Kanoe tripped into Nataku's hands and screamed, cars squealed to a stop in panic and swerved to avoid the power lines that had suddenly stopped and were falling like thick snakes in the road. The Metropolitan Government Buildings shuddered with the impact. Top-floor windows fell out and smashed on the gardens below, raining glass onto the fallen chords from the torn-out walls. The people running out of the building screamed and stopped, covering their heads with their jackets or briefcases.

Satsuki sighed heavily and turned her back on the chaos. Yuuto was kneeling on the sidewalk and shielding his head with scratched hands. Upon closer inspection, Satsuki could now see that he was bleeding along his flanks, shoulders, and legs, and that his suit had been neatly slashed in several bloody places from close scrapes. But, he was alive.

_God, that_ _was such a close call._ The cloud of adrenaline was slowly wearing off, bringing the clarity of the situation back into focus. Satsuki sat back on her legs and cleaned her glasses on her uniform skirt numbly. _So close. So damn close. I can't believe he's alive. I'm so glad that damn machine takes so long to boot._

Satsuki inwardly cursed herself. They would have made it out in better time if she had not dared to debate over BEAST and Yuuto; that was why Yuuto was curled up over there and bleeding. She still stared down at her glasses when Yuuto moved over to her and shielded the sunlight, unable to look at him. She could see blood leaking out of his pants onto his shoes.

"Wow…" Yuuto said quietly. "That was… impressive."

"…let's get you cleaned up." Satsuki pushed her glasses back over her nose and stood up briskly, glancing briefly and severely at Yuuto and then at Nataku and Kanoe, the latter of whom was still shaking and staring at the chaos in front of the Metropolitan Government Buildings. Sirens were becoming audible down the street above the cacophony of honking and screaming from people running out of the building. _Bomb squad and paramedics should be here soon. _"Nataku as well."

"Our headquarters… the BEAST…" Kanoe jabbered and pointed at the building, eyes wide and bloodshot. "You—you—"

"We can discuss this later. Come on."

* * *

_No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that—one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can…my story is not a pleasant one; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams—like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves… _(1)

* * *

Seishirou softly tapped the side of his spoon against the base of his chocolate milkshake glass, chin in his hand and starting out the restaurant window. Even in his stupor he had taken care to replace his usual calculating frown with a soft, preoccupied look, which he knew was further enhanced by his pedestrian attire. He had walked with Kamui and Fuuma to an all-night variety diner down the street from his office, one of those places that served breakfast and lunch foods at all hours of the day. Though it was late evening on a weeknight, the diner was packed with salarymen and students. Granted, any place with an open table was considered empty in Shinjuku. Kamui and Fuuma, who were across the booth, had grown curiously quiet, though they had been already been acting awkwardly enough all afternoon. Both looked exhausted. Kamui was resting his head on his folded arms, dozing, and Fuuma was staring out the window. Seishirou knew that Kamui hadn't slept in forty-eight hours, nor had he changed or showered during that duration, and after his discussion that afternoon he knew that Fuuma had not slept or rested properly either. Seishirou had lost track of how much silence had elapsed, though since they weren't questioning, he didn't care; they could entertain themselves for a bit. His thoughts were wandering once again to the same topic that had been nagging him for a while now, always evolving and manifesting into different conclusions and revelations.

Meeting Fuuma at the veterinary office had been amusing enough. Seishirou had absentmindedly walked into the holding room for less-serious cases where Kamui and Fuuma had set up shop when they had met for the 'first' time, insofar as Fuuma was concerned. Seishirou felt a small jolt in his stomach at seeing the familiar tall, broad-shouldered form turned away from him when he entered the room. He had half-expected Fuuma to turn around and say something smartass, smirking and looking over the tops of his sunglasses, but Fuuma only turned looked Seishirou over quietly, obviously surprised at meeting another Japanese man who stood to his eye level, if not a bit taller, and with a false eye, no less. Seishirou had watched Fuuma cautiously for any signs of recognition, pretending to wait politely to be introduced and wondering if Kamui had spilled the story already, until Kamui had grunted and muttered, "Oh, this is Dr. Sakurazuka. Sakurazuka, this is Monou Fuuma. I'm sure you're just delighted to _meet_ him." Fuuma had given Kamui a quizzical look at his tone, but had returned to observing Seishirou and extended his hand to shake, tilting his head and squinting as if looking for something familiar in Seishirou's expression. Aside from that, though, Fuuma showed no sign that he remembered Seishirou at all, which was good. He had blinked at Seishirou's false eye until Seishirou had made up a story about a car wreck, praying that Subaru had never talked to Fuuma about him beforehand.

_You know, there was a time when you didn't care who knew about your affiliation with Subaru. The world should know; it was their warning to stay away from my prey. Now I'm sworn to this damned secrecy. Cornered._ Seishirou glanced at Fuuma, who was also looking out the window, though he could not properly focus his anger on him any longer. This "real" Fuuma was a broken joke of the old Dark Kamui; he was polite, reserved, preoccupied and scatterbrained, expressionless, and, so far, dull. He had stopped wearing sunglasses and overly-elaborate outfits in exchange for a school uniform, and now obviously spent much less time doing his hair, only slightly spiking it with gel and leaving it half-mussed and flat instead of preening. Traces of mild acne were starting to spot his cheeks once again; Dark Kamui had been far too vain to allow that sort of nonsense. Though, he still wore the same cologne. It was expected; during an argument on whose cologne smelled the best, Dark Kamui had told Seishirou that he wore the same cologne Fuuma had worn just to torture Kamui. Seishirou smirked; he knew that his own cologne had the same effect on Subaru. He wore a tad too much when he was planning on visiting the Sumeragi so that he could sneak around corners and watch the effect when Subaru noticed traces of his cologne in the air.

_Those stalking days are done for now, though._ _You bastard, Fuuma._ _You know way too much for your own good. It's still locked up in your head. I'm sure of it._ Seishirou had no idea what Kamui saw in Fuuma, though he was not complaining. Whatever it was, it was keeping Kamui away from Subaru.

Seishirou sighed and took a drink of milkshake, absently sliding the crumpled straw wrapper up the table. He was wondering once again what the _hell_ he was thinking as a fifteen-year-old when he had made the bet under the sakura tree. Adolescent thoughts seldom were supposed to have root in sense, but he knew that in that action there was a vital link to a basic question that had always been at the back of his mind. Perhaps it had been an act of defiance to his then-late mother, or perhaps he had merely wanted to play around with the cute little boy who had been sent into the lion's den. No, that wasn't it. He knew that wasn't all of it. A nagging, persistent question he had not been able to word properly had been sparked by something he had felt—yes, he now knew it was _felt_, though he had not been willing to acknowledge that for a long time—when Subaru had asked if the people beneath the tree suffered.

Basically, on one hand, he had always wanted to know whether or not he was capable of loving, and on the other hand, he had always dodged any possible answers. It was a pathetically passive-aggressive paradox he had lived since his mother had first started instructing him in his role as the future Sakurazukamori. As a veterinary student he had done some side-research on psychology, wondering if he was a sociopath. He truly did not feel any pathos or love (well, if he had never felt them, how could he know?) toward anything, from the animals his mother had given him to slaughter to the humans he had killed later in life. His mother, Setsuka, locked him in the shrine's garage as a small child with stray cats and birds and refused to feed him until he had killed them with his bare hands. He was perhaps three when this had first happened. Of course, at that age he was given animals that he could physically handle, like toads, but as he grew, so did his charges and their abilities to harm him. He spent most of his elementary school days until he learned to master onmyoujitsu clawed and scratched, wounds his mother would tenderly wash and wrap after he had finished his duty. He had the inclination to cry over killing animals beaten and starved out of him before he got into kindergarten, though by the time he was old enough to muse he had forgotten if he was crying over the animals' pain, or only because he was hungry, tired, cold, and couldn't figure out how to kill them.

Sakurazuka Setsuka had been a _case_. While Seishirou's mother had been harsh and thorough with her training, she was loving and tender at other times. His mother had been breaking for as long as Seishirou could remember, growing weak in her role as the Sakurazukamori, and Seishirou was the cause of her weakness. Setsuka unflinchingly explained to Seishirou this weakening condition when he entered junior high school, making herself an example of the one downfall that warranted the Sakurazukamori a luxurious death. As soon as he reached puberty, Setsuka explained the rudiments of lust, sex, and the acceptable boundaries between a mere hunger for flesh and an emotional attachment to which the Sakurazukamori must adhere. By this time, though, Setsuka was preaching to the choir. Sex and love were two entirely different things to Seishirou, love being utterly foreign and associated with a distance he was never able to cross with any human being. It was impossible. Though, the evening after his mother's first talk, which was the day after Seishirou was caught taking his semen-spotted sheets to the washing machine in the dead of night, embarrassed, she started coming to his room at night. At first, it was just heavy petting, fooling around nonsense with a great deal of tongue-kissing, but it soon evolved into full-blown intercourse.

Seishirou ran his pinky across his lips, still staring out the window and half wondering what was taking dinner so long. Yes, his mother had been a good lay, but nothing more. He felt no repulsion to sleeping with his mother, as he felt zero love or connection to her emotionally, though she confessed that she had finally fallen in love. As he had no concept of closeness or relationships, he had only an intellectual perception of the boundaries most people associated with different types of relationships.

Setsuka grew weird those last few weeks before her death. She had once confessed, laughing softly in the morning light and gazing down at her tousled son in his bed, that though she had obviously had intercourse before, she now considered Seishirou the breaker of her virginity. Seishirou didn't know how the hell that made sense at the time, and it still did not even after he met Subaru, but he remembered the scene every time he noted that, after meeting Subaru, he no longer lusted after anybody else. His mother's words were thrown in his face when Dark Kamui had scornfully called him a virgin just over a month ago, though he knew damn well that Seishirou was not. Yes, that bastard had a sick taste for irony and a stock of information far too large. Unknown to Seishirou, even Satsuki and Yuuto were mistaken about his lack of virginity, taking Fuuma's words at face value and overanalyzing them to a false conclusion.

_I didn't love her when I killed her. It truly was like kicking a rock, and she knew that._ Seishirou fingered the pack of Mild Sevens in his lab coat pocket and considered smoking, then pushed the thought away. The year of the bet had been odd, somewhat of a break of insanity. He had entered the bet curiously, honestly wondering if he could force himself to love another human being and nurse that spark he had felt when he had first met Subaru, though he suspected that it might just be a sick lust. Hell, if he didn't see any problem with sleeping with his mother, why should lusting after a cute little boy be any different? It was all flesh; social bounds were alien to him. For the first months of the bet, try as he might, he couldn't love Subaru. Subaru and Hokuto were still objects to him, trash he would not flinch at burning as soon as the year was up. He often sat alone on his couch in the dead of night wondering why he was following through with this childish bet, running in mental circles and chain smoking. Slowly, it evolved into far more than an arbitrary, ludicrous game. The 'game' became addictive and dangerous. There were moments when, in the pit of his chest, he felt the faintest of flutters when thinking about Subaru, his opposite in every way, the one who embodied everything that he was not. They were small, dull flutters, often forgotten and missed even when in Subaru's company in place of the usual objectivity, but they grew frequent and often quite insistent at night. It was as if his heart was stuffed with cotton, and the flutters were a lone feather deep within the cotton, barely felt but somehow noted.

Even after revealing himself to Subaru (a few days early, as Fuuma had pointed out), Seishirou considered the 'flutters' insofar as Subaru was concerned mere focused lust, something he was more than willing to acknowledge. Seishirou had long ago acknowledged and even admitted to not only himself, but also Subaru, his lust and desire to possess Subaru and break him. But, Seishirou was still convinced that he did not love Subaru. The nagging idea was oppressed and latent, only manifesting itself when Seishirou was musing at his most raw and self-honest, often late at night while washing blood off his hands in the bathroom. As the years passed, Seishirou caught himself wondering what would happen without Subaru in his life. The idea was ludicrous, of course. Subaru was his opposite, destined to be ensnared. Every time he touched the idea of love he panicked and psyched himself back into believing that Subaru was a mere object of lust and possession, existing across an emotional gulf Seishirou could not cross even if he wanted to.

After Fuuma had told him that he was henceforth forbidden to communicate with Subaru in any way, he started to crack, and the null ideas and questions residing deep within his unconscious surged forward. It was that night, sitting in his kitchen and smoking, exhausted and staring at the ceiling, that he became aware of the fact that he was cracking, and had been for nine years. He pictured his mind as resembling a mirror he had punched out during the bet-year in one of his moments of weakness, cracking and reflecting his insane expression from every shattered angle. It was maddening. It was as though he had been seeing a solid piece of glass for many years, and then blinked only to see that it had been shattered all along. As during that night when he had felt himself slip close enough to the edge to punch the mirror, he was no longer boldly probing the idea that he could not love, but was running from the fear that he _was_ loving, that Sumeragi Subaru had crossed the immeasurable, objective gulf. However, unlike the night when he punched the mirror, he did not wake up feeling fully self-assured and his detached self again. He woke feeling like hell, more confused than he had been the night before, and plagued by nightmares.

"_If you didn't have anything to fear, you wouldn't. If you have to fight something off, even if you no longer notice that you are fighting, it exists."_

The voice that had spoken those words was now, in a much gentler tone, thanking the waitress for his food. Seishirou looked back at the table with only a slight, unnoticed grimace, as the waitress placed a plate of pastries in front of him – the "continental breakfast". He unfolded the napkin around his silverware and spread the former in his lap.

"You go straight for the sweets, don't you?"

Seishirou looked up from spreading jam on a cream cheese Danish and nodded at Fuuma, smoothing his face into a geeky smile. "I have an unparalleled sweet tooth. Someday I'm going to get monstrously fat. My dentist loves me half to death, though I take good care of my teeth, all things considered."

_For various reasons_, he thought, pouring coffee. His jaw still twinged from Kamui's assault, and he was still mentally kicking himself for submitting to that treatment. _I really jumped off the deep end THAT evening, didn't I?_

"Yes, your dentist must love you," Kamui said dryly. He was pouring salt on his hashed browns and scowling, head resting flat on his upper arm and eyeing the salt crystals falling onto his food and melting into the thick, brown shreds. Though Kamui was usually sour around him, Seishirou could tell that Kamui's source of tension was coming straight from Fuuma this time, which was a nice change. It gave him some breathing room to think.

"She does, yes." The dentist was dead, though. Though she was the best dentist in the district and had done an amazing job on the mess Kamui had made of Seishirou, the treatment had been unpleasant, and Seishirou was in such a poor mood that medical necessity was not a good enough excuse for the pain. For good measure, he had also ripped the head off of her daughter's cat and had left it out in their yard at just the moment when the little girl had run outside looking for her kitty, distraught over her mother's disappearance and wanting a little comfort and time away from the detectives in the house. It made for an amusing afternoon.

"Um… Dr. Sakurazuka?" said Fuuma. Kamui snorted softly and smeared catsup on his eggs with the back of his spoon.

"I told you, 'Seishirou' is fine."

"Right. Um… thank you for taking us out here."

"Oh." Seishirou waved his free hand and took a bite of his Danish. "It's no problem. You boys helped me a lot today. It's the least I can do. Besides, I'm pretty hungry myself. Are you guys going to need a ride back to CLAMP Campus?"

"Don't give a fuck," muttered Kamui. Fuuma kicked him under the table.

"We'll be fine on the subway. Thank you, though."

"You sure? It's pretty late, and I don't mind." _I have some serious ass to kiss, so let me do it. Come on, boys. If you just let me do some things for you, you'd be surprised at how quickly you'll trust me. Just let me close._

"We're sure," said Fuuma. Kamui gave Fuuma a sidelong glare from his resting place on the tabletop, sighed, and poked at his eggs.

"You're rather tense today, Kamui. Something up?"

"Bite me."

Fuuma glanced awkwardly at Kamui and then focused on eating, obviously famished. Seishirou shrugged. Kamui had spilled his guts in his office that afternoon regarding kissing Fuuma and had then proceeded to kick himself for trusting Seishirou enough to confide in him, which put Seishirou in a chipper mood for various obvious reasons. Seishirou had the opportunity to play mentor once again.

"All right, then." He turned to Fuuma. "Hungry, are you? Must take a lot to feed a big guy like you. Well, I can relate, obviously. I remember being that age clearly. I ate my mother out of house and home."

Dark Kamui would have pulled an innuendo out of that and made a smartass comment. Fuuma only nodded and swallowed, pouring gravy from a small side-boat on his mashed potatoes and saying that he hadn't eaten all day. Seishirou smiled. _You're no fun._

"Are you part Caucasian?"

Kamui glanced at Seishirou. Fuuma narrowed his eyes and tilted his head, chewing. He swallowed. "…what?"

"Are you part white?"

"Oh, yeah. Mother's side of the family, somewhere in the distant past. Why?"

"The hell kind of a question is that?" asked Kamui.

"I was just wondering. You look it."

"My sister really did, more than I do." Fuuma blinked, hard, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, resting the edge of his fork on the rim of his plate for a moment before resuming eating. Kamui glared at Seishirou, hard, before wolfing down a few bites of egg.

"I apologize," said Seishirou. "I seem to have touched on a bad topic."

Fuuma waved his hand and shook his head, swallowing. "Don't worry about it. It's all right."

"…you boys look dead." Seishirou folded his hands on the tabletop and tapped his fingers against his knuckles. "…that's it. I'm going to give you a ride home. You're too sleep-deprived to ride the subway at this hour. It's still a madhouse from the spike, I bet."

"No, really," said Fuuma. "It's fine…"

* * *

_I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult? _(1)

* * *

"Can you drive at all with that eye?" asked Kamui.

"Of course." Seishirou unlocked the vet-van by remote and slid the side door open. "I've been doing it for nine years. Hop in."

Fuuma looked around the parking lot behind the veterinary office, still able to see the diner down the block. His thoughts were still half-taking a plunge toward Kotori and depression. He sighed and climbed into the dark van, forcing the thoughts out of his head until he got back to CLAMP Campus. He did not want to break down in front of Dr. Sakurazuka. Kamui climbed in after him and sat on the far side of the middle row.

The van was old and ragged, but clean. When Seishirou climbed into the driver's seat, the sakura-shaped air freshener swung as the van dipped and sprang back up under his weight. It reminded Fuuma of an airport charter, for some reason, but smaller: the seatbelts were not flush against the seats, but hanging from the ceiling, and the van smelled strongly of cigarettes and traces of cologne and sakura.

Seishirou started the van, quickly backed out of the parking space, jerked into drive, and swerved onto the street. Fuuma clutched the armrest and made a small nose of surprise. Kamui, who had not buckled his seatbelt, slammed into the side of the van and cursed loudly.

"You might want to buckle up," Seishirou said cheerfully.

"Are you _psycho_? What the hell are you _doing_?"

"Driving you home, of course."

"But you're—oh my god LOOK OUT."

Fuuma gritted his teeth and winced, waiting for an impact. Seishirou swerved his car back into his lane, narrowly missing ramming sidelong into the Nissan Altima in the right lane. Kamui slammed into the side of the car once again and quickly buckled himself in, hands shaking.

"Are you BLIND?"

"Only half. Don't worry. I've been doing this for years." Seishirou waved his hand over his shoulder. Kamui was gaping. "I knew it was there."

"Then why did you—"

"We didn't hit, did we? Here." Seishirou switched on the radio. "Let's listen to some music."

Rock music blared out of the unbalanced speakers. Seishirou said "Ah, I know this song!" and started singing with the radio, badly, swerving around a corner a second after the turn arrow turned red and shifting everybody violently again. Kamui straightened, groaned, and buried his head in his hands.

"We're going to die…"

"It'll be fine," said Fuuma. He sighed and watched out the window, holding onto the door's armrest and growing slightly carsick. He wondered, vaguely, how Seishirou had known that Kotori was a bad topic upon which to touch, though he might be assuming too much; Seishirou may have merely seen Fuuma's expression change, and the veterinarian did not specifically mention his sister anyway. He knew that Kamui had been going to Seishirou's office after school to talk, now. Kamui finally confessed that was where he had been going sometimes, but Fuuma wondered if Kamui had gone more than he let on when they talked while working with the animals. He had no idea who Seishirou was, though something about the man seemed as though it should be familiar. The answer was just out of mental reach. It was like trying to hold sand. The tighter he grasped at a fleeting memory attached to the man, the faster it slipped away.

_I'll have to ask him someday if we've met before, or something. You'd think I'd remember another man as tall as me, and with a fake eye. There's also something distinctive about him. I don't know what it is, but he seems memorable…_

Fuuma watched out the window and mused on Seishirou and Kamui, alternately, until Seishirou stopped the car at the street corner two blocks from CLAMP Campus and turned the radio off. Fuuma noticed by the clock that they had been in the car almost an hour, though his carsickness had abated since he was no longer looking at the swerving sidewalks, and he had lost track of time. It was almost midnight, and Kamui had managed to fall dead asleep despite the wild ride, head back and mouth gaping.

"Why are we stopping?"

"I can't go any further. I'm not welcome at CLAMP Campus."

Fuuma blinked. Seishirou waved his hand over his seat again. "Don't ask. Someday, perhaps, I will tell you, but for the time being I just can't take you any further. I'm sorry. Do you mind walking?"

"No. It's not far. Thank you very much for taking us this far."

"Oh, it's no problem. You're very welcome."

Fuuma nodded and unbuckled his seatbelt, then leaned over and shook Kamui's shoulders. Kamui's head shook limply, but he did not awaken. Fuuma shook harder. "Kamui, wake up."

"He won't awaken. I put him under a sleeping spell." Seishirou turned around in his seat. "He was getting sick, and he hasn't slept in over forty-eight hours, so I've put him in a deep, healing sleep. I know that you are also tired, but can you carry him? If not, I can wake him."

"…spell?"

"Oh, yeah." Seishirou removed his glasses and cleaned them on his white coat. "I have some basic magical powers, same as your friend. Now isn't the time to talk about me or my past. I assume that you have a lot of questions, given how many odd things I have dropped in conversations. Someday, perhaps, I will get to know you well enough to tell you more, Monou-kun."

"…you can call me 'Fuuma'. And, yeah, I can carry him." Fuuma opened the side door, unbuckled Kamui, and hefted him out of his seat, glad that his friend was so thin. He was tired enough that any greater of a burden would have been difficult. He gave Seishirou a last long, hard look, confused and still grasping at that slipping answer to his question. _Who are you? Why do I feel like I know you? Not welcome at the Campus; what is all of this nonsense?_

"Oh, and there is one more thing," said Seishirou.

"Yes?"

"You know Sumeragi Subaru?"

"Yes. He lives with me."

"Don't mention me to him, ever. Please. Do not talk about us meeting or hanging out. Not a word to him or _anybody_. Do you understand? This is another one of those things I will have to explain later. I only ask for trust right now, difficult as that might be to give to some crazy stranger."

…_what in the…?_ "…all right."

"Thank you." Seishirou nodded to Fuuma and smiled. "If you ever want to talk or something, you know where to find my office. Kamui has my cell number."

Fuuma backed out of the open door. "…all right."

"I'll close it." Seishirou unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned back over the middle armrest, stretching until he was almost out of his seat to reach for the interior handle on the sliding door.

"You got it?"

"…ye-ah." Seishirou grunted slightly and pulled the door handle into his grasp with his fingertips. "A-ha. You'd better get back to school. People are probably worried about you. Remember, not a word about me."

"All right. Thank you."

"No problem." Seishirou tilted his head and smiled from his odd, stretched position. The streetlights glared off his glasses from the open doorway. "Get some rest, Fuuma-kun. Good night."

"Good night, Dr… Seishirou-san."

* * *

(1) _Demian_ by Hermann Hesse – Introduction and Prologue 


	16. Furnace Sky

Fuuma was resting his head on his folded arms, ignoring the homely noise of chatter and scraping chairs and half-listening to the TV bolted in the corner above the teacher's desk. Because of the alleged terrorist bombing at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Buildings the teachers had unofficially cancelled class in lieu of watching the news reports. About half the class was gathered around the government teacher's desk to watch, a few intermittently looking over their shoulders and yelling at the other half of the class to shut the hell up and sit down. Their protests were ineffective.

Fuuma heard the door slide open.

"Well, forty-five minutes, Shirou-kun," said the teacher. Fuuma looked up; Kamui was weaving his way past the standing students and glaring at the teacher in passing, shoulders slumped and fists clenched in his pockets. "I must say that is the single longest restroom trip I have ever witnessed, and I've witnessed quite a few."

"It's after lunch and I have a fu—freaking hole in my stomach. Give me a break."

A few of the students flinched. The teacher tapped her pencil against her teeth, obviously not amused.

"Thank you for sharing with the class."

"No problem."

"If it's that bad, you should go to the nurse. And that hole in your stomach never bothered you much until today."

"Yeah, whatever."

Kamui spun an adjacent chair out and around to face Fuuma's desk, sitting down heavily in the same movement, arms crossed and slouching with his legs spread. Fuuma leaned on his palm and furrowed his eyebrows.

"Um, Kamui, if you're really having a problem, maybe you _should_ go to the nurse. Or the hospital or something."

Kamui pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and tapped the butt of it against the tabletop. He shrugged and made a non-committal noise.

"I mean, forty-five minutes really is… are you losing blood?"

"Would you _shut up_?" Kamui hissed. "I was on the phone."

"With who?"

"Who do you _think_?" Kamui slammed his phone face-first into the table and crossed his arms. "_God_!"

"I don't know. Seishirou-san?" Fuuma picked up Kamui's phone and flipped it face-up in his palm. The pin-dot screen was cracked, and gray-black fluid was collecting along the fracture. "Kamui, your phone is broken."

"No, _Subaru_." Kamui snatched his phone from Fuuma, glared at it, and tapped it on the table again. "I need a new phone anyway. I hope it doesn't work for the rest of the day."

"Did talking with Subaru make you this angry?"

"_No_, genius."

"Sorry. I just don't know what's going on."

"Hey, guys!" Keiichi pulled up another chair and sat between Kamui and Fuuma, draping his arms around their shoulders. Kamui glared at him. "Do you want to go swimming after school? Sorata-kun's going to get Arashi-chan to go, and I was wondering if you could get Yuzuriha-chan to come as well."

"Not today, Keiichi—"

"Come _on_!" Keiichi shook Kamui's shoulders in his one-armed grip. "It'll cheer you up, man! Chicks and surf! We can even take your friend Sumeragi-sempai if he wants to come. He _always_ looks like he needs a little cheering up."

Kamui groaned and rolled his eyes, pulling away. Keiichi looked at Fuuma, who shrugged and shook his head, mouthing 'Let me talk to him'. Keiichi nodded and gave Fuuma a thumbs-up.

"Right, so, yeah." He clapped his hands together. "If you feel like coming, show up on the south side of the Sea by that one veranda-place that sells all the avocado stuff. And, oh, yeah, I'm planning on asking Yuzuriha-chan to the dance; do you think she'll give me the time of day this time around?"

"How the hell should I know, Keiichi?" muttered Kamui.

"I would have taken something a little more encouraging, but… oh well." Keiichi clapped both boys on the shoulder and ruffled their hair, standing and scooting the chair back. "I'll see you two later!"

Keiichi walked off toward Sorata. Fuuma felt his tousled, gel-sticky hair and snorted at Kamui, who was glaring at him with his arms crossed and his already-unruly hair sticking out at odd angles. Fuuma ran his fingers through his hair to tease it back into spikes.

"I'm not fucking going swimming," said Kamui, absentmindedly running his fingers through his hair.

"What happened on the phone with Subaru?"

"_Shit_."

"Oh."

"God, I'm such an _idiot_." Kamui buried his head in his hands and slammed his forehead into the table. "Stupid-_stupid_-Shirou—"

"Whoa, calm down. What stuff?" Fuuma watched Kamui for a moment. Kamui still had his head face-down on the desk, and he was clutching the back of his head. "Do you guys have a history or something?"

Kamui snorted loudly.

"That's a 'yes'… Well, what is it?"

"Um…" Kamui looked up and tapped his fingers on the tabletop, half-staring off into space. "Well. About Subaru…"

Kamui stopped, half-mouthing words and looking up into his brain. Fuuma blinked.

"Yes?"

"Look." Kamui looked around the room at the students, Keiichi and Sorata of whom averted their eyes and talked amongst themselves as soon as Kamui looked up. "We'll talk about it later. All right?"

"All right, but… if I may ask now, what happened? You're acting psychotic."

"Oh, _the talk_." Kamui sighed. "It was one of those talks where you call each other by name a lot. You know. _Those_ talks."

"Yeah. I know what you mean."

"Yeah… it went _great_…"

* * *

The conversation hadn't gone well.

"Well, where have you been all of these nights? You came home late last night with Monou-san, and you've been looking terrible lately."

"We were just out playing DDR and stuff in Shinjuku, all right?" Kamui shifted his position so that his shoulder-blades weren't digging into the stall wall and stretched his legs out beside the toilet's base, half-heartedly noticing that his pants were getting too short and his black-socked ankles were showing. He switched his phone to the other hand. People had been coming in and out of the bathroom for half an hour and finding his position quite amusing, depending on the tone of his voice, either raised, whispered, or meek, given his position in the conversation at the time. "We lost track of time and got… lost."

"You certainly are spending a lot of time together."

"Subaru, don't be a bastard. He's my best friend and I've hardly gotten to talk to him lately. He's been depressed as all fucking hell, and he's finally getting well enough to walk around without having a breakdown."

"I _know_, but…"

It got quiet on the other end of the line. Kamui waited an uneasy duration for Subaru to speak before clearing his throat.

"Well."

"Yeah."

More silence.

"Where are you, anyway?" said Kamui.

"Athens Pavilion."

"Aren't you supposed to be in econ?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Silence. Kamui shifted his weight on his rear.

"Yeah."

"What are you doing?"

"Sitting on the freaking bathroom floor in a stall, ditching gov."

"Do you want to come out here and talk?"

"Can't leave the building. Students aren't supposed to really go anywhere right now because of the terrorist shit."

It was a lie, and right after saying it, Kamui realized Subaru would know it was a lie. Students were given free reign on campus, and the faculty and student body were in such an odd, fixed-on-the-TV mood that he could slip out quite easily. Kamui sighed heavily.

"Subaru, Yuzuriha told me you started smoking again."

Silence. Kamui cleared his throat.

"Like, right after I saw you on the stairs, and you know that I saw you on the stairs."

Silence. Kamui sighed heavily.

"Subaru, come on, talk to me."

"Are you two officially a couple?"

"What? No. Fuuma hasn't said a word about it. I'm waiting for his response. I don't know." Kamui rested his forehead on his hand. "I think I've made a huge mistake. I shouldn't have moved so fast. He probably thinks I'm a loose little player or something. That's not who I am. It's… I don't know. Sorry. I shouldn't talk about this with you."

"Well, I don't know where he would get _that_ idea."

Kamui opened his eyes and stared at the wall. _What in the… did Sumeragi Subaru just sound spiteful? _

"What the hell is wrong with you, Subaru?"

"Nothing."

"That's crap. What's wrong? Come on, Suub, you can tell me."

"What do you _think_ is wrong, Kamui?" Kamui went silent and picked at his thin, black shoelaces. _I really need new pants._ "Look, I just want to know where you stand on all of this. I'm confused."

"I'm confused too, Subaru." _Actually, no, I'm not. If Fuuma says 'yes', I'm going with him. It's what I'll do when he says 'no' that's got me._

"Well…?"

"Look." Kamui cleared his throat. "Fuuma hasn't given me a response yet, but when he does, I'll take my next course of action."

"Which will be…?"

"It depends on the response."

"Which means…?"

"I don't know." _What the hell am I supposed to say to you, Subaru? I've already set my mind on Fuuma, and, oh, by the way, you know the guy you love most of all? Far more than you could ever love me? Yeah, that guy, well, I've become chat-buddies with him, and he's been acting like the kindest guy alive around me, but he doesn't want me to even mention a word of him to you. If you could only visit him and have him act to you like he does to me, you'd be the happiest man on the entire planet, but I have to withhold that from you too. Everybody could be happy, and you'd be off my back, and I'd stop feeling so bad about you. You think I WANT to keep that from happening? I've got everything you want, but I have to withhold it from you. And I care about you a hell of a lot, Subaru. A HELL of a lot. You're my best friend. How's that for confusion?_

"Kamui?"

"I'm sorry, Subaru. Look, I've got to get back to class."

Silence. Kamui sighed and checked his watch. He had been in the bathroom for forty minutes. _I love having a medical record that says I have a hole clear through my stomach._

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

Silence. Kamui sighed.

"Yeah. Anyway."

"How do you really feel about me?"

Kamui groaned and buried his head in his hand. "Subaru, _come on_…"

* * *

Fuuma walked down the veterinary hallway after the nurse, hands shoved into his pockets and staring at the back of her neck. She was chattering in a rough, rural dialect—about how she was shocked that he could get off CLAMP Campus after the terrorist attack, and, oh, _had_ he heard about that attack, and _what_ did he think? And how _scrapping_ he looked in that _adorable_ uniform, how _good_ young men tended to look in ties and how if _she_ ruled the world, they'd _all_ wear CLAMP Campus uniforms…

"…you're a fine fig're of one, too, a big fellow. Only other fellow I know yer size is the doctor. Anyway." The nurse stopped in front of the office door and bowed to him. "This is the doctor's office. Lucky fellow you are that he gave you clearance to come back here."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Yer're Monou Fuuma-kun, aren't you? He described you to all us gals and told us to let you back if you so wished. Just knock before you enter. Now, if you'd excuse me."

The nurse brushed past Fuuma. Fuuma sighed and knocked on the door.

"Yes?" said Seishirou.

"Pardon the intrusion." Fuuma slid the door open and stuck his head into the room. Seishirou was leaning back in his chair, looking over the top of a chart and pulling his reading glasses down to get a clear look at the doorway. He was wearing a deep-and-sky-blue suit ensemble beneath his white coat. "Seishirou-san, can I talk to you?"

"Oh, Fuuma-kun! Yes, come in." Seishirou pushed his glasses back over his eyes and set his chart down. "Back so soon? I thought the campus wouldn't let you off today."

"I have ways of getting off."

"I'm sure you do." Seishirou laughed and stood. "Are you thirsty? Do you want me to get something for you to drink from the lounge?"

"I'm fine, thank you. I just want to ask a few questions."

"Ah." Seishirou sat down. "In a hurry?"

"No, just have a lot of bases to cover today."

"So you _are_ in a hurry. Well, I'll try to help you as quickly as I can."

"Right." Fuuma took a deep breath. _All right, just start. Just like you rehearsed on the JR._ "I don't know quite where to begin, and this is all going to sound weird, but you seem like the kind of guy I can talk to."

"I'm flattered."

"Well, I mean, it's like I've known you before, or something. I feel comfortable around you. You see, I have partial amnesia." Fuuma paused, gauging Seishirou's reaction. The latter raised his eyebrows quizzically, but remained silent. "It's like… well, some stuff happened in my past, and most of it's come back to me, but there's this big blank spot I need to fill in. I was wondering if you could help me."

"If I can help in any way, I would be happy to. How did you get amnesia, if I might ask?"

"It's a long story. Maybe I'll tell you later. But, anyway…" Fuuma pointed to his right eye. "You lost that in a car wreck, didn't you?"

"Yeah, nine years ago."

"Was… anybody you know involved?"

"Just me and myself. I was young and a bit of an idiot at the time. The wreck was my fault. I hit a light pole."

"I see." Fuuma narrowed his eyes. Seishirou blinked and tilted his head, slightly amused. For something in his expression, Fuuma half-expected Seishirou was going to tell him to relax, followed by some form of sagely, 'I-was-once-like-you' advice. _Damn, that smile is so familiar. Who are you? That can't be right, that you lost your eye in a car wreck. It doesn't fit. And you would think in a car wreck, you'd get other stuff hurt before your eye. I mean… it's kind of lodged in your skull; you'd have to have something pointy aimed directly at—_

"Well, I was asking because I have a friend who lost that same eye, and he got the same weird fake eye you have. Like, it's not painted in to look like a real eye, but it looks like smoky glass. Same side of his face, too."

"Huh. Well, this guy must have the same tastes I do. I had to custom-order this orb."

"But… huh, this is going to sound weird, but…" Fuuma sighed and leaned forward. "I know you. _I know_ I know you, but I don't remember from where, or why. I know this all sounds psychotic, but it's true. Just hear me out." Seishirou was arching his eyebrows again. _Great, he does think I'm a psycho._ "I took my friend's eye because he wished to be just like somebody that he loves, but that who-he-loves part is a big blank. And then _you _come along, with the same eye punched out, and you specifically told me not to tell _that guy_ about you. You know. Sumeragi Subaru-san?"

"I know of him."

"Of _course_ you do, you specifically mentioned him. God, you're so confusing."

"Sorry."

"It's fine. Sorry." _Argh, that was rude._ "But, yeah. Anyway. It's like… the way he was feeling about the whole eye thing implied that something _more_ than a car wreck had happened. He felt guilty, like it was _his_ fault. In short, he felt connected in some way. Anyway. Subaru-san smokes Mild Sevens, and I know you do too. And… huh, well, basically, all of the loose ends in my life, all of those things that end in blanks… all of the blanks point to _you_. I _know_ you're the guy he used to love. If that doesn't fit right, I'm going to go insane."

"I see."

"_I know_ I know you. It's driving me insane. It's just outside my grasp, just like all of those blank spots. There's another thing, too. I was… I was raped, and that's another blank spot in my memory. I don't remember who did it, or why it happened, or hell, given what I _used_ to be, whether or not I consented to it. But it happened." Fuuma looked Seishirou over carefully. The veterinarian had arched his eyebrows higher in subdued shock. "And I have a feeling that you're linked to that blank spot too, somehow."

"That's terrible. I can't believe that happened to you." Seishirou pushed his glasses up his nose and gazed at Fuuma with deep concern, as if he wanted to find the words to say something to make everything better all of a sudden, but was being held back by some deep, secret, past-rooted force. "…I'm sorry, Fuuma-kun. It's a disgusting breech of the most basic human decency."

"But, do you know anything about that?"

"I'm sorry to say that I don't."

"Ah. Well, if you think of anything… anything at all…"

"I'll be sure to tell you. I'd do a lot to lock rapists away. The thought makes me sick. You're holding yourself together most admirably."

"Thank you. Another thing… I was the leader of a group called the Dragons of Earth. It's sort of like a cult, if you will, but I can account for five of them in my memory. The sixth one under my command is also a blank spot." Fuuma thought for a moment. "I know some of the Dragons were good people misplaced in the wrong group, so I was wondering if you were the sixth Dragon. It seems farfetched, and I bet you think I'm crazy, but it was worth a shot. I _know_ you're the sixth Dragon. I just _know_ it."

"I see." Seishirou leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment, staring at the ceiling with the same dwelling expression. _He's intriguing. If only I knew what the hell makes him tick…_ "…well… what I can tell you, anyway…" He sat up. "Yes, I was a Dragon of Earth. And you were my Kamui."

"You were?"

"Yes." He smiled and took a sip of coffee, nodding toward Fuuma in a half-bow. "You were my companion and partner-in-crime, as black-hearted as I was, and eventually we became fast friends and… well, 'ass-buddies', I believe the term is. We helped each other torture our pure counterparts and got into a lot of dumb arguments. You _should_ remember me. I used to be your lover and best friend."

Fuuma gaped at Seishirou, mind reeling. The edges of memories were starting to surge around just out of his reach once again, half-formed with brief flashbacks and images of a dark-haired, smirking man in sunglasses offering Fuuma cigarettes, standing atop a building with him—all disjointed, all hazed and hurried. Fuuma grasped at the brief images and the meaning just behind them, but all slipped out of his grasp like sand. Seishirou leaned forward, furrowing his eyebrows seriously, and stared at Fuuma for a long time.

"…just kidding."

Seishirou burst out laughing and shook his head as Fuuma's mind slammed back to earth. The latter slumped down in his seat, growing pale. _What is _with _this guy? What the… what was all of that? Oh God, if I don't get a grasp on those flashes, I'm going to go mad. They're going to drive me mad._

"Seriously," said Seishirou, "I wish I could help you, but beyond being a Dragon of Earth the like of Shiyuu Kusanagi, I've got nothing."

"That wasn't funny."

"Sorry, sorry. I'm going a bit crazy. It's the end of the day."

"But, what about Subaru-san?"

"Ah, Subaru-kun, indeed. Yes, I do have a history with him. An extensive history. And, as before, I have to ask you not to bring that up with anybody, especially him. Someday you will understand, but right now, this is for his safety. I can only implore you to trust me."

"…just kidding?"

"No, dead serious that time."

"But it's driving me mad. You have to tell me _something_."

"You will understand with time." Seishirou walked around the desk to stand in front of Fuuma and placed his hands on Fuuma's shoulders. "I can only ask you to trust me until then. Please."

_Whatever._ _You're nuts. _Fuuma stared into Seishirou's mismatched eyes, scrabbling at edges of meaning behind the false one. _What are you hiding from me? You KNOW something you're not telling me. I know it._ "…okay."

"Good." Seishirou straightened. "Well, since you're here, do you want to see a movie or something? I'm almost done with work."

"I really should get going."

* * *

"Fuuma's going to be a bit late getting home this evening." Sorata snapped his phone shut and shoved it back into his beach-bag. "He's going to see a movie, or something."

"With _who_?" asked Kamui.

"Didn't say. Whoa, look at that sunset. Talk about _red_."

Sorata looked up as the monorail whisked down its distant, concentric path. He, Kamui, Arashi, and Keiichi were walking down the flora-edged sidewalk that lead back to the condo. As he and Keiichi were the only ones who had any plans to go to CLAMP Campus's artificial sea, he and Keiichi were the only ones who had brought sandals and shorts. The other two were clad in damp, sandy uniforms, socks, and leather shoes. Yuzuriha and Fuuma had disappeared as soon as school had gotten out, and nobody knew where they had gone.

"That's just super," said Kamui.

"Hey, I think it's good that he's getting out on his own," said Keiichi. "Maybe he'll stop being so shell-shocked and enjoy life a little bit."

"You know _nothing_ about Fuuma," Kamui muttered.

"Would you chill out? I'm not cutting him down or anything."

"Hey, Keiichi," said Sorata. "Wait around a while at our place for Yuzuriha-chan. You should ask her out this evening when she gets back."

"But—"

"No, no, no 'buts'. You should dive right in and _do it_. Take the plunge. I mean, I did it with Nee-chan here, and look where it got me."

Arashi had sped up and was walking well ahead of the group, arms crossed. Keiichi shrugged.

"Right. Sounds great."

* * *

Kamui could smell that Subaru was smoking as he walked up the stairs. He sighed and threw his beach-bag into his room, then padded to Subaru's room at the end of the hallway and nudged the door open. Subaru was sitting cross-legged on the carpet with his back to the door, clad only in jeans and socks and meditating, a cigarette dangling from his lips. The ashtray by his knee was littered with butts and ashes, and the air was smoke-logged and a fiery red from the combination of sunset and pollution.

"Jesus, Subaru." Kamui walked across the room and opened the window. "You're going to suffocate. Take it easy."

Kamui turned around. Subaru was staring at him with lidded eyes, exhausted to the bone. He and the room were burned with sunset oranges and reds. Kamui swallowed and perched on the end of Subaru's bed. Subaru closed his eyes sadly and straightened his back again.

"Beautiful sunsets Tokyo has," said Subaru. "It's too bad the colors are so vivid from all of the air pollution. It's also why the stars twinkle so beautifully. But, then again, sin is the well-spring of power in this city. Nowhere else do people enjoy their decent into sin so very much."

"Well, 'the earth is begging for a revolution'." Kamui laughed weakly. Subaru sighed and remained silent. Kamui waited, staring at him and mentally begging for _something_ to break the tension. _Oh, come on. If I can joke about that, you can jolly up a little._

"Uh, I think pretty much anywhere on earth, people can make things pretty damn sinful," said Kamui. "They are _people_, after all."

Subaru remained silent. Kamui cleared his throat. _Oh lord. I can tell this is going to be just fantastic._

"Come on, Suub. Talk to me. I haven't seen you in two days."

Subaru did not respond. Kamui sighed.

"I broke my phone. Imonoyama said he'd get me a new one. Feel sort of bad about that, though. He's given me so much already. I think I'm going to get a job."

"How did you break your phone?"

"I dropped it."

"You should be more careful."

"Yeah." Kamui watched Subaru, shifting uneasily. He wondered if his spine was going to snap under the tension in the room. His back was already stiffening and knotting up. _Why does the room have to be so damn red? It feels like a fucking furnace in here. I should buy us a huge black candle. Aren't those supposed to absorb negative energy, or something? I'm going to need a massage after all of this._ His thoughts wandered in the direction of Fuuma's large, strong hands kneading his back, but slammed into a wall. The _look_ on Subaru's face was enough to make him feel terrible for even _thinking_ about Fuuma in that way at the moment.

"Um, Subaru, are you doing all right?"

"As well as I've always been doing."

"Um. Well, that's good. I guess. Uh." Kamui swayed back and forth on his hands. "You missed the beach today. We had a good time. Keiichi and I played volleyball for a while. The food down there's great. It's all American-California stuff, for the most part, but you can get teriyaki and ramen if you want it. I liked the burgers, though. Have you ever tried 'avocado'? It looks like green mush, but it's actually not half bad. Er."

"I've tried avocado."

"And you'd look pretty good in a swimsuit, so if that's what's keeping you, don't let it. I mean, you're shirtless right now, and you look pretty good. The girls'd go mad."

"Don't tease me, Kamui."

"I'm _not_. Jesus fucking _Christ_, you're so _hypersensitive_!"

"…am I?"

"YES." Kamui groaned angrily and clawed the air in Subaru's general direction, as if trying to slam a point into his head. Subaru was still sitting up straight with his eyes closed. "You… arrrrgh! God!"

"You are the one who is overreacting."

"No, _you_ are! You've been pouting for two days! Arrrrrgh!" Kamui stood up and jerked his hands as though he wanted to shake Subaru by the neck. "What the… I'm sorry, Subaru, but I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to say to you. I'm so scared you're sitting here stewing and thinking that I'm another person like—who likes to abuse you like— I don't _like_ shit like that! I'm not a player! I don't like screwing around with you! If I could fix hurting you by apologizing on my knees for days, by God, I'd do it, and lick your shoes and beg your forgiveness and cry and grovel and—"

"Be quiet. None of that is necessary."

"Both of you be quiet," said Arashi. Subaru opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder, and Kamui froze, clutching his hair in frustration. Arashi was glaring at them. "Yuzuriha just got home, and she's upset. The last thing she needs is to hear you two fighting."

"We're not fighting," Kamui and Subaru said in unison.

"Call it what you will. At least, please, keep it down."

Arashi left and closed the door behind her. Kamui and Subaru looked at one another.

"…it's all right." Subaru snubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray and sighed. "I'm used to feeling this pain. There is nothing desirable about me, anyway. I don't deserve anything else."

"You know, that's _real_ mature, playing that guilt card so early. _Real_ nice, Subaru. I don't feel badly enough, you know, so you need to make me feel worse."

"You do?"

"Yes! My _God_, are you blind?" Kamui got on his knees aside Subaru and shook his shoulders. "Why the hell do you think nobody could really care about you, anyway? You think you're so dark and tragic and flawed and—I don't know, something that everybody thinks is pure but really isn't—but I _do_ care about you, and I _don't_ think you're trash that deserves to be hurt. I know you've got some dark stuff, but you're for the most part an amazing person, Subaru. I mean, we all do, you know, have some dark stuff, but you control it so well. You're not deceptive. You just act in such a kind way that everybody thinks you're just as pure and unselfish as an angel, but you're a human, and you've got wants, and you get angry and jealous, and _I don't know_." Kamui took a deep breath. "Sorry. This isn't making any sense."

"No, it is—"

"—but it's like you think you're bad because you hide your faults and make people think you're pure, but that's not right. I mean, you should be proud of that. You're not _deceptive_. You're not like—anyway." Kamui swore to himself; Subaru had closed his eyes in pain and looked away. "—sorry, but you're not. You really are a kind person, Subaru, or as kind as any human being can be. You don't _deserve_ this, _any_ of this. I'm sick of watching you take shit like this like you deserve it. I'm sorry that I did this to you, but it's not over yet. Fuuma hasn't given me an answer yet."

Kamui took a deep breath, wondering where the hell all of that had come from. Subaru glanced at him.

_Oh, my god. NONE of that made any sense. Great job, Shirou. You've botched this one._

"There's still a chance for us?" said Subaru.

"Sure. Yeah. Um, what did Arashi say about Yuzuriha?"

* * *

_Throwning_ _up ashes on the floor  
If this is a lesson in love  
Well what's it for?  
The heart will remember  
The burning fire  
The next time you feel the flame  
Of desire (1)_

* * *

"I made such a fool of myself."

"No, _no_, of course you didn't, Yuzu-chan." Sorata was sitting on the floor aside the living room couch where Yuzuriha had collapsed face-down with Inuki in her arms, the latter of whom was licking her face and whimpering comfortingly. Yuzuriha had been bawling when she burst into the house, disheveled and face flushed with running, though she had since calmed down enough to be able to speak coherently. The nice pleated skirt and hooded blouse she had changed into for her outing were rumpled, and her shoes were scuffed.

"But, I mean, I looked like such a little twit, I'm sure, like, 'Hey, I'm in love with you, and I've always loved you,' but I didn't know what else to say. I just stood there gawping like an idiot. Oh my god. He probably never wants to see me again."

"Well, how do you know that for sure?"

"I mean, I hinted at it before, like, I kinda said it, but today for the first time I just laid it out on the table. I'm such an idiot. Oh my god. I'm such an idioooot…"

The last word came out as a whine, and Yuzuriha started sobbing again. Inuki whined and nuzzled her cheeks.

"Here." Keiichi walked in from the kitchen with a tea-tray and set it down on the floor. He sat down beside Sorata. "Drink some of this. It's my special secret Keiichi blend. It calms you down like nobody's business."

"I love him so much!"

Keiichi blinked and stopped midway into handing Yuzuriha a mug; she had degenerated back into hysteria.

"I looo—ve him so mu-u-u-u-ch! I love him! I love him! I love him!"

Yuzuriha repeated the words in a desperate mantra, a half-hearted litany. Sorata swallowed and picked at the carpet, unsure of how exactly to respond. Arashi walked back down the stairs and sat beside him.

"I told them to shut up."

"Thank you," Sorata whispered. He patted Arashi's hand. Arashi was too focused on Yuzuriha to respond.

"Yuzuriha-chan," Arashi said quietly, "What happened?"

"He doesn't love me." Inuki nudged his mistress supportively as she sniffed and stared over the throw-pillow at the wall. "He… well, I told him how I felt, and how I was sure he was my special somebody, and he said that he only saw me as a daughter. Like, nothing more. And how we never had a chance to have a relationship like that, ever. He was so kind, though. It was like… it was like he was pitying me, like he thought I was pathetic, and it made me sick."

"I'm sure that's not true, Yuzuriha-chan," said Sorata. "Come on. Our girl, pathetic? Nobody in his right mind'd think that. It takes courage to admit that you love somebody, and if he doesn't see that, girl, he doesn't deserve you."

"But… no, you don't understand, it's like… the way he looked when I told him. It was almost amusement, like he was thinking, 'Oh, cute little-girl-crush' or something, but he has no idea… he has no idea… I hate it when adults think youths can't love just as strongly as they do."

"Maybe adults just appreciate more how people are able to move on from what they think is 'true love'," said Arashi.

"But it's… I don't know. I think he doesn't take me seriously because I'm so young. Like, that's the only thing holding us back."

"It may be," said Arashi. "It just may be."

"But you don't understand!" Yuzuriha bit her lip and fought off another sobbing-attack. "It's… that can't be right. Love isn't supposed to know age like that. Love is stronger than that. People just need to free their minds. It's not _wrong_. It's never _wrong_."

Arashi, Sorata, and Keiichi exchanged looks. Keiichi sighed and offered Yuzuriha the mug of tea.

"Please, try some of this."

Yuzuriha sniffed and sat up enough to accept the mug, but only stared into it. She blinked tears into the tea.

"…uh, Yuzuriha," said Keiichi carefully. "I know it's wrong and in a perfect world, age wouldn't count for anything, but… well, for a lot of people, it really does. There's just… well, some people just feel it's wrong, like they're taking advantage of somebody, or they want somebody on their maturity level… it really is a bigger factor than you'd think. That's just the way it is. Life isn't ideal. It's full of stupid stuff like this. People have dumb hang-ups."

Yuzuriha looked up at Keiichi. "You aren't supposed to know about Kusanagi-san."

"I figured it out." Keiichi smiled sadly and took a sip of his tea. "That whole old classmate thing? Yeah, I knew it was a lie. I'm not as dumb as people think I am."

"But… no, I can't just be his _friend_. I love him more than you have any idea." Sorata winced; Keiichi drew back and took a deep drink of his tea. _Come on, man. Hang in there. We'll win her over to you._ "I'm sure I can overcome this. I can show him that."

The three on the floor exchanged looks. Arashi sighed and offered Yuzuriha a tissue from the box on her lap.

"Here."

"Yuzuriha-chan," said Keiichi, "You should cut bait with this one. Life's too short to be hung up on something you've got no chance of having and will only make you sad while you're tied to it."

"Oh, that's deep," said Sorata. "I like that."

"Really? Thanks. It was in my rhetoric paper last semester."

"And it's fine rhetoric!"

Yuzuriha moaned into the pillow and twisted it in her fists. Keiichi cleared his throat.

"Which is why… well, this is probably the worst possible time to ask this, given that you're not in a great mood, but—"

"Segawa," said Arashi, "You _can't_ be serious—"

"—would you go to the dance with me?" He thought for a moment. Yuzuriha had gone still and quiet. "…it's not like I'm asking you to commit to dating me, but give me a chance. See if you like me."

Inuki looked nervously from his mistress to Keiichi. Sorata cringed; Inuki looked as though he knew that his mistress was about to blow up in some way. The monk placed his hand on Keiichi's shoulder.

"That probably wasn't a great idea…"

Yuzuriha scrambled up from the couch and ran upstairs, shoving Kamui and Subaru against the stairwell wall on her way up. Inuki scrambled after her, yapping. Sorata gaped. Kamui and Subaru stared after her for a moment before looking at the three on the floor for an explanation.

"Oh…" Sorata shook his head and waved his hand. "It's just that Dragon of Earth fellow. The girl just had her heart broken. Don't worry; she'll be fine. I think."

"That wasn't a good idea, was it?" said Keiichi.

"You are a moron," said Arashi.

"_What_?"

Arashi stood, smoothed her skirts, and walked up the stairs, brushing past Kamui and Subaru. "Let me talk to her. You guys stay keep out of the room until I ask for you."

"What did I do?"

"Ah, nothing. It's just women." Sorata sighed and shrugged. "They're all barking mad. If we had the slightest idea what makes them tick, we wouldn't make fools of ourselves so much."

Subaru turned on his heel and walked back upstairs. Kamui stood where he was and blankly stared at Sorata and Keiichi.

"…that's _it_." Kamui walked down the stairs and crossed the room. "That's _it_. I can't take any more of this _drama shit_. I'm _done_. I'm _leaving_. I'm sick of all the _relationships_ and the _hurting _and the _shit_ and the… _shit_. Call me when everybody here stops _sucking_."

"Kamui, come on—" said Keiichi.

"I'm _leaving_. That's _it_. God, _now_ I know why the earth wanted kill off all the _humans_. They _suck_."

"Uh, Kamui, you don't have a working phone," said Sorata.

"I don't care. I'll be back. I just have to get out of here."

Kamui walked into the kitchen. A few seconds later, Sorata heard the screen door slam. Keiichi looked at him.

"What the hell was all of that about?"

"Beats me. I think he and Subaru and Fuuma have some sort of a thing going on."

"Yeah, I guessed as much. Right. He'll be fine. He does that sometimes." Keiichi sighed. "I've made a huge mistake, haven't I?"

"Possibly." Sorata patted him on the back. "Come on, man. You made a noble effort. Can't do nothing about it now. The TV's free. Do you want to play _Super Smash Brothers_?"

* * *

(1) John Hiatt – "Cry Love" 


	17. Butterfly

_Vows are spoken  
To be broken__  
Feelings are intense  
Words are trivial  
Pleasures remain  
So does the pain  
Words are meaningless  
And forgettable (1)_

_

* * *

_

**1990**

Sixteen-year-old Sumeragi Subaru fidgeted uneasily and stared out across the ocean, leaning back on the heels of his gloved hands and mashing the sand through the spread beach towel. Hokuto-chan had dashed up the brushy slope to the vet-van to retrieve more wasabi, chiding herself for being such a poor hostess, and Seishirou-san had gone God-knows-where for a moment, disappearing toward buildings Subaru assumed were the restrooms; of Seishirou-san's frequent casual disappearances, at least _some_ of them _had_ to be mundane. He always came back none the worse for wear or humor, but Subaru was growing progressively more suspicious that Seishirou-san was hiding a secret, and that the secret was intimately linked to shadowy, dreamlike memories of his past. It was becoming easier to grasp vestiges of those dark memories, infused with fragrant sakura, but they always slipped away before they could solidify.

The beach trip had been Hokuto's idea, of course. She wanted Subaru to get away from work and decompress. She claimed that he was under too much stress lately. Subaru did not see the use; he was only getting more stressed by allowing work to pile up and feeling guilty for not working. Every moment he spent off the job was a moment some poor soul spent in torment. Hokuto had replied to that objection by saying "You can't save the world, Subaru. You have to live your own life sometimes," and then promptly calling Seishirou on the kitchen phone to ask if he had Saturday off work to drive to the beach. Subaru had stood in the background babbling about how he _was_ taking his own time—to complete high school—which _was_ of his own choosing, so he could pursue a selfish dream of being a zookeeper—so he _was_ thinking of himself and his own life just enough, thank you very much, but Hokuto had only thrown a dishrag at him as soon as she got off the phone and dragged him out the door to go swimsuit shopping.

_I'm going to have so much catching up to do. I really don't have time for this. I can't believe I got talked into this._ Subaru watched Hokuto run down the slope in her sandals with a bottle and the car keys, tropical-sherbet colored sarong flapping erratically in the wind and catching on the scrubby sand-weeds. He looked down at his own orange-and-green swim trunks and sighed. They had wasted time for Hokuto to pick out matching swimsuits. They had wasted time getting all of the ingredients for sushi at the grocery store. They had wasted time getting gas. Putting on sunscreen. Waiting at stoplights. Watching seagulls. _Wasted time. Wasted time._ He watched Hokuto walk up to the blanket, kick off her sandals, and sit down cross-legged with the wasabi. _I've got no time to waste so much time. I've got jobs piling up. I've got schoolwork. I'm going to flunk out of Algebra II if I don't turn in a perfect folder this week. I've got to get help in math and chemistry; I should be using Seishirou-san's time to beg for help on that, not waste his time at the beach. _

"_Su-ba-ru_! Stop fidgeting and eat!" Hokuto slammed the bottle in front of him. "Now! Everything is perfect! We have soy sauce _and_ wasabi!"

"Hokuto-chan, we really should get going."

"NO!" Hokuto snatched Subaru's untouched plate and cleaned the sand off of its face with her sarong, scowling. "You're going to take a day off and not worry about a thing but yours and Sei-chan's love!" Subaru flushed briefly and glanced sidelong at the ocean before focusing on the food. "God! You're being very inconsiderate, after all this work I've put forth for you two!"

"S-sorry…"

"Stop apologizing!"

"Sorry."

"I mean it!"

"S-… uh…"

"You're as wound up as a spring, you know that? You'll die of a heart attack before you're twenty." Hokuto sighed heavily and pinched several sushi rolls onto Subaru's plate with frog-shaped tongs. "Subaru, how many times do I have to tell you to lighten up? Stop apologizing every five seconds. It really isn't a security blanket against confrontation, and it's cowardly. And you'll do fine in school. Just do what you need to do to get your diploma; don't go overboard."

"That's what I'm doing. I just haven't had time to even learn the material."

"You're balancing too much." Hokuto handed Subaru his plate. "Eat. You've got no meat on your bones. Sei-chan works too much too, but at least he knows that he's working _for_ life. He takes time out to truly _live_. Your work isn't your life's purpose, you know. It's just a means to an end so you can have what truly matters."

"Um."

"You need a perspective check. _You_ should be the one wearing the glasses." Hokuto looked over Subaru's head. "Right, Sei-chan?"

Subaru froze, the nerves along his spine shorting. Seishirou had started to laugh softly and sit down behind him, reaching around Subaru for his soda and pulling Subaru into the warm hollow of his embrace in the process. Subaru closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, taking a shuddering breath and blushing. _Why do I have such a hair-trigger with turning red? Come on; you have seen him without a shirt before, right? Like, five minutes ago, but he's the same guy no matter what's covered and what's not._

Subaru felt guilty and shallow for giving Seishirou a careful going-over out of the corner of his eyes as soon as Seishirou had taken his shirt off. He was still attractive, but not as perfect as Subaru had imagined. His shoulders were still much too broad—Subaru was hoping that had been entirely the effect of suit jackets and too-starched shirts—and his legs were toned, but awkwardly knobby and hairy, and he had a fair, dark line of hair down his abdomen. While Seishirou was distracted because he was unloading the umbrella from the back of the van, Hokuto had called the latter hair the "stairway to heaven" and giggled. Subaru did not get it for five minutes. Seishirou's chest was smooth, however, and aside from his shoulder width, he had a _nice_, strong upper body. And, he still had the exact same pretty face and warm smile. Subaru had carefully inspected his own body for flaws, wondering if Seishirou was also giving him a looking-over. The only approval Subaru had for his own body was that it was clean and smooth—he had very little body hair—but beyond that, he was a knobby-jointed, awkward toothpick with poor posture and less muscle than his twin sister, and he looked plain goofy in swimming trunks and gloves. Hokuto had told him not to worry about it and to remember that he had a gorgeous face and beautiful, straight shoulders when he carried himself upright, as he did when he was on assignment.

"Hokuto-chan, be nice to him," said Seishirou. "We're here to relax, not badger Subaru-kun. Remember?"

"He's _worrying_!" Hokuto re-adjusted her legs beneath her and picked a sushi roll off the platter with her chopsticks. "_Sei-chan_, carry him off into the sunset already and blow his mind out of this world!"

Subaru wasn't sure whether he turned red before or after he thought on that idea in its multiple, flash-feverish forms for a second. Seishirou laughed and took a deep drink of his soda.

"But, Hokuto-chan, I thought you told me not to take him far away from you."

"You'll bring him back when you're done."

Subaru busied himself mixing sushi sauce out of wasabi and soy, trying to meditate. His thoughts drifted to the assignment pile on the kitchen counter at home, and he groaned softly, massaging his temple. Hokuto growled quietly.

"SU-BA-RU."

"I'm sorry, it's just…" He looked around nervously, half-seeing a volleyball fly across his field of vision between shadow-figures; the other direction, sparkling water and sunset— "I've got so much work at home, and I really should get back—AAAAAAAH!"

Hokuto shrieked with delight. Seishirou stood and scooped Subaru into his arms, balancing Subaru's legs over his forearm and catching Subaru's back with his hand, ignoring Subaru's stammering cries of "S-S-Seishirou-sssan!" Subaru desperately wished he had a hat to pull low over his eyes, and instead sufficed with burying his head in his gloved hands. _Maybe I can spell myself to make this blushing stop—oh no oh no oh no oh no—_

Seishirou ran across the sand and crashed into the ocean. He and Subaru yelped with the cold and the shock; Seishirou lost his balance and fell, pulling Subaru under the foaming waves with him. Subaru struggled to stand against the under-currents, but Seishirou kept a tight hold around his waist and pulled him above the waves as he broke water with a gasp, shaking his head quickly. Subaru gasped and wrung the water out of his thick hair, panting and shaking with shock and excitement. He was sure his heart was pounding a mile a minute. Seishirou was turning circles and scanning the water around them, minus his eyeglasses. Subaru broke free of Seishirou and started groping blindly into the surrounding currents, seawater rushing in under his gloves. He faintly heard Hokuto cheering across the beach.

"Well." Seishirou looked across the sand, smiling. "It looks like I entertained _somebody_, at least."

"Seishirou-san, your glasses!—"

"Don't worry about it." Seishirou ran his fingers through his hair and submerged himself to the waist, wading with his hands outstretched. "It's my own fault for charging in like that. I forget I'm wearing them."

"Can you see?"

"My eyesight's not completely shot. I'm mostly farsighted, so I'll be able to drive us home safely without them. Worst-case scenario, I'll get some cheap reading glasses for work until I can get my prescription." He smiled up at Subaru, who was still standing above him, half-dumbstruck. "It's well worth it to see that look on your face, Subaru-kun."

"…uh…"

"Ah! Here they are!" Seishirou stood and shook the water off his glasses' lenses, then wiped them on the hem of his trunks, little good though that did. "Come on; let's find some place where we can relax. I can see I'm going to have to force you into that."

Subaru had no idea what would constitute "relaxing", but Seishirou's idea, which was curling up and sitting spoon-fashion on the shoreline, was anything but _relaxing_ at first. Subaru stared down at the lapping water, allowing himself to lean on Seishirou's shoulder and trying to control his breathing and heart-rate. _This is more like an exercise in onmyoujitsu concentration than relaxation. Is Seishirou-san trying to drive me mad?_

"Is this comfortable?" asked Seishirou.

"What?"

"I mean, are you getting sore sitting like this, or is this fine?"

"What? No, I mean, yes, I mean… no, I'm not getting sore. This is fine. Uh. Are you getting sore, Seishirou-san? Because if you are, we can move—"

"Shhhhh." Seishirou pulled Subaru closer and dipped his head close to Subaru's ear. Subaru stared pointedly at the ticking hand of Seishirou's metal wristwatch and took a deep breath. "Just relax, Subaru-kun." Subaru stiffened and fought the impulse to yelp; Seishirou had flicked his tongue over the edge of his ear. "Just—" He held tighter, more intimately. "—relax—"

"Th-that's too close, Seishirou-s-san."

"…sorry." Seishirou loosened his hold and straightened. Subaru sighed. "It seems I've cut out of line a bit."

"I'm really—I mean, I'm sorry, but I'm just… it just… it's not personal, I mean, it's like…" Subaru stammered; he was hoping Seishirou would have already cut in, but the latter was patiently waiting for him to finish. "…uh… I'm not ready," he finished lamely. Seishirou chuckled; Subaru scowled slightly. "And I dislike it when you're so condescending about it. I can't put things in words well, but it doesn't feel right yet."

"I'm not condescending, Subaru-kun. I admire your honesty and respect your wishes." Seishirou sniffed Subaru's hair. "It just means anything you allow me to do is all the more precious. Physical affection is just that sacred to you, isn't it?"

"…uh… yeah."

"And you're also just scared. I'm not giving you too much holy credit." Seishirou sighed and stroked Subaru's left shoulder with his right hand. "I'll win you yet, Subaru-kun. Someday, you will be mine. Don't stiffen like that; you will be mine because you want to be. It will be entirely of your own will. That makes it all the more precious to me."

"Really?"

"Really. I don't consider you 'mine' until you come willingly. That's how I like things." Seishirou tightened his grip. "It is written in the stars above that you and I will be together."

"Don't say that!"

Seishirou paused, as surprised by Subaru's outburst as Subaru himself was. Subaru took a deep breath and buried his head in his gloved hands again, hooking Seishirou's crossed forearms with his own arms. "Sorry, it's just… lately… I hate destiny," said Subaru. "I'm sick of it. I hate it when people say things are already written for me. I mean, I know it's not what you really mean, because you were just talking about free will, but if you're one of those people who thinks 'free will' is fated… I don't know, Seishirou-san. It just made me feel a bit sick. I've already sacrificed my entire life and my dreams for some 'fate' I never asked for and—" He took a deep breath and stared at the sand, rigid. "Sorry. I don't know where that came from."

"It sounds like it's been long in coming." Seishirou thought for a moment. "Then… let's put it this way: you'll come to me entirely of free will itself, which is far more powerful than any 'destiny'. That is the power of the bond that will hold us forever."

"That's… much nicer, anyway." Subaru held his breath uneasily, knowing he was blushing again. _I wish I wasn't so reactive. I know he gets a kick out of it._ He allowed himself to relax and lean forward against Seishirou's arms like a rag doll for a moment, Seishirou's flesh against his bare chest, and then snuggle back against Seishirou's chest. Subaru sighed as Seishirou tightened his grip again. It was stiflingly warm, he was sitting on an uncomfortable shell, and he was sure he seemed like a wilting hothouse flower, but he didn't care. _Flesh against my back, so hot, so hot, so—this is the closest I've ever been to Seishirou-san, so close, so—warm—skin—so smooth—_

"Well, I'm glad it's nicer," said Seishirou. Subaru started, glad that he was facing away from Seishirou. He felt as though his thoughts were scrawled across his face in clear, black ink. "I like 'free will' better too. Much better."

"…there is more to life than onmyoujitsu." Subaru took a deep breath and collected his thoughts, leaning back and listening to Seishirou's strong, dull heartbeat. Seishirou was waiting patiently. "I don't want to dedicate my whole life to that destiny. I mean, there's more to me than being Sumeragi Subaru, the thirteenth head of the Sumeragi Clan. I mean, that's not who I am. Entirely. It is, partly, but there's more to me than that. I want to do so much more with my life. If I had the choice, I wouldn't be the head. I mean, I don't know if I have an affinity for onmyoujitsu because I've grown up with it, or because it really is a part of _me_, you know? Like, if I was born something else, if I'd still end up where I am today."

"I know what you mean."

"I mean, I'm just Sumeragi Subaru. Just Subaru, deep down. I just want to live a life of my own choosing. It's selfish, but deep down, I'm a really selfish person. I don't want to be, but—"

"Hush. Deep down, _everybody_ is selfish. It's a survival adaptation." Seishirou nuzzled the top of Subaru's head. "The measure of how _unselfish_ you are is the degree to which you override that in your actions when the need arises. But wanting your own life, and living your own life, even if it means less people will benefit from it, is your basic human right."

Subaru thought for a moment, trying to push Seishirou's nuzzling to a peripheral place in his mind. "…I want to be a zookeeper. You see, I'm already being selfish, I'm already… trying to complete school when I could be using that time to help people, but I'm selfish…"

"Silence. I just answered that, didn't I?" Seishirou nibbled the top of Subaru's head. Subaru giggled. "Ah, you're loosening up a little bit."

"Seishirou-san!"

"You know what? You get into college and become a zookeeper. I'll make a deal with you. If you go down that path, I'll go back to veterinary school and study the care of zoo animals. Do night school, or something, until I get a diploma. I'll shut down the clinic and work as your partner at the zoo. We'll be a team."

Subaru froze. "…are you joking?"

"I swear it." Seishirou placed his large hand on the center of Subaru's chest. "I swear on my heart."

Subaru thought for a moment before hiding behind his hands. Seishirou laughed.

"It's true. I swear on my heart."

"Seishirou-san, that's so… I don't know…"

"Over the top? Corny?"

"Yes," Subaru said into his hands.

"I like 'over the top' and 'corny'. It's the only way to express how much I love you, Subaru-kun. It's overwhelming. I lose all economy of words where expressing my love is concerned."

"_Sei-shi-rou-san!_"

Seishirou laughed as Subaru pulled his bangs, almost hurting his nose because he was clutching so tightly. _Calm down._ He took deep breaths to calm his heart. _Calm. Be serene, like water. Just calm down. He has to stop affecting you like this. Just flow like water. Oh, god, he's laughing, he's shaking because he's laughing. He's got such a nice laugh… I can feel it through my spine… help._

"You'd really do that for me?" asked Subaru. "You'd… drop everything, your practice, your income, your security?"

"In an instant."

"It takes so long to build up a practice in this town, and rent is so high… you'd have to move out of your apartment… and you already went to school for so long…"

"I don't care. When life presents an opportunity, you grasp it. It doesn't matter what security you lose. Life's short. This is your one shot. Besides, I'm the only one living on my income, so I can ethically make a transition like that."

"… I don't understand you, Seishirou-san."

"Mm?"

"How you can be so… loose. Break ties so easily. I mean, don't you ever worry about the future? Security?"

"No, I really don't. I know that no matter what, I'll make things turn out all right."

"I wish I had your courage."

"Then have it. It's that simple. And it's about half fool-heartedness; don't glorify it so much." Seishirou sighed and stroked Subaru's hair, gathering the boy against his chest with his other arm. "You're too young to think like you do, Subaru-kun. I've been through pre-med; I've known a lot of physicians and veterinarians who turned out in their late twenties like you've turned out at sixteen. I've seen a lot of once laid-back and casual people turn uptight and neurotic because so much rested on their shoulders; one slip-up was a life lost or ruined. That neuroticism extended far beyond their practices and into their everyday lives. Taking chances, anything without a set plan and a foothold made them squirm. To them, any chance was selfish; any fall, no matter how minor, and the word 'failure', were subconsciously associated with something irredeemable. Those people think if they take a risk, others fall with them, and others will suffer, but that's not always the case. They became cranky and tense, obsessed with order. I wouldn't call you cranky by any means, but you _are_ tense as hell…" Seishirou sighed. "You've got too much resting on your shoulders too young, Subaru-kun, and I'm afraid it's going to break you. I'm afraid it'll beat the life and spirit out of you long before your time. It's bad enough when it happens to somebody in his thirties, but you're _sixteen_. You have to let go. This is your one shot at life. Life's too short to live like you're living. Or _not_ living, as the case may be."

"You sound like Hokuto-chan."

"Listen to her, then. That young lady has a good head on her shoulders."

"But _somebody_ has to do it. _Somebody_ has to bear all those burdens, else nobody'd do it. _Somebody_ has to sacrifice for the sake of the many. It's not fair, but _somebody's_ got to do it, or everybody's quality of life would suffer. And I'm proud to help others be happy."

"You just said you didn't want this destiny, Subaru-kun. So what is it?"

"I don't! I… I just want to help people of my own choosing!"

"Because you feel obligated."

"_That's not it_!"

"But what about your _own_ happiness? What about Sumeragi Subaru-kun?"

"It's fine. I… I don't know. Helping others truly does make me happy, and I'd be hollow without it, but I want to do it my own way. I mean, I know I can do the most good with my onmyouji skills, but… I guess… I guess I'd be unhappy if I gave that up, because the guilt'd eat me alive. I don't know, Seishirou-san. I'm all mixed up inside about that. I don't know what I _really_ want, I guess."

Seishirou sighed and laced his fingers with Subaru's gloved fingers, then held their interlocked hands in the flowing water. "I want you to feel the tidal energies. Feel the ocean, Subaru-kun. Feel how it flows."

"What? Why?"

"Just do it, please. I'm trying to make a point."

Subaru sighed and closed his eyes. The lukewarm water flowing through his glove was salty, infused with life and energy, flowing, undulating and chaotic. It was liberating. Subaru sighed and relaxed, channeling the flow through his veins to his core. He was well familiar with tidal and water-related energies, but he had forgotten just how soothing they were.

"The ocean is flowing and chaotic; it is entirely fluid movement," Seishirou murmured into Subaru's ear. "The energies are confusing, but that is because they are all interconnected. Everything causes everything causes everything else. The same way the beating of a butterfly's wings today in America can cause a hurricane here tomorrow, so can the slightest change in an undersea life be felt in the currents flowing around us right now. Everything, Subaru-kun, is connected in some way. The effects may be invisible, chaotic, and shattered like a spider-web, seemingly off-aimed and by coincidence, but it is all a result of the energies flowing around us. Physical energy is connected to mental energy is all energy. You just have to go with the flow. Trust in _your own_ flow, and you will end up on your feet in the end. Yes, you _do_ have to work with it; you can't just sit there and hope your future will come to you. You have to actively pursue it and work for it."

"…_what?_"

"Feel it, Subaru-kun. As an onmyouji, and as a _human_, you've been trained to think in terms of opposites, light and dark, good and evil, plus and minus, concrete and abstract, dead and alive, the material plane and the spiritual plane. But, it is _humans_ who restrict their awareness only to poles; it is _humans_ who strive to make order out of this universal flow-of-chaos instead of seeing it as the living whole that it is. It is senseless when divided into pieces, but it means everything when you look at it as one whole. Only in that whole-context does it make sense. You can't divide a flow into parts. You can't separate the light from the dark. It all merges together in the movement. Divided, it is nothing, just wayward drops."

"Uh."

"Humans have been taught that order is relating things to one another—twisting facts to suit theories, in a sense, and seeing things as versions of other things instead of their own distinct entities—but in reality, life and universal energies are far more chaotic and sensitive to the smallest things than those mentalities would allow you to think. The universe is synchronized. _Everything_ is connected. _Everything_ causes _everything else_. You can't isolate and divide causes and effects into their own microcosmic compartments."

"…um…"

"That's my very roundabout way of telling you to loosen up and let go, Subaru-kun. The universe isn't going to shatter if you step out of line."

"You're… talking on such a grand scale, though. I'm talking about everyday stuff, my job, the people I help, the—I think you're missing the point—"

"That is your microcosm."

"But you just _said_ there were no true microcosms!"

Seishirou laughed and shook his head. "Never mind, never mind. Pursue your dreams, Subaru-kun. Let go and do it. Come on; think about it. We'll move into an apartment close to the zoo grounds, a nice one, since we can all split rent. We'll only need two bedrooms if Hokuto-chan wants to live with us."

"Hokuto-chan and I are used to having our own rooms, but if that would be easier to afford…"

"I was planning on having you sleep with me, Subaru-kun."

Subaru groaned and buried his face in one hand. Seishirou laughed and lifted their interlocked hands out of the seawater, hugging Subaru possessively again.

"You're adorable, Subaru-kun. I promise it will be nice. Just think: every day, we can return home to each other and just _talk_. Or cuddle. Or make out or have earth-shattering sex and wake the neighbors; it really depends on what you want."

"_Seishirou-saaaaan_!"

"I promise I'll be as gentle as possible. Your first time, at least. After that, I have a feeling you'll become a kinky bastard in bed. I'm looking forward to it."

"_Seishirou-san, that's enough_!"

Subaru groaned, trying unsuccessfully not to mediate too deeply on Seishirou's offer. Seishirou laughed and nuzzled the back of his head.

"Oh, boy." Seishirou stroked Subaru's cheek with the backs of his fingers. "If it wasn't so dark, I bet I'd see you glowing. You know, if we're going to be working together and everything, we better not fight much. Else work _and_ home is going to be hell."

"… I don't think I could ever fight with you, Seishirou-san."

"Mmmm. I'm glad."

"…Seishirou-san?"

"Yes?"

"What you were saying about the universe and all… if all that's true, it's all chaos… there's no organization? Is 'time' just a human concept for organizing events, distinguishing 'cause' from 'effect'?"

"_Linear_ time may be. It's a rather long-winded theory. What, do you want to go into theoretical physics? I almost did until I realized I needed a more… practical job."

"But if there's no cause and effect… everything may happen at once as far as the universe is concerned, right?"

"That is one school of thought."

"Then everything's already happened, maybe?"

"Maybe."

"Then… is that _fate_? Or did free will _already_ decide things?"

"Ah…" Seishirou sighed. "Nobody knows, Subaru-kun. You can go in circles with that theory until you go blind. Nobody knows what it is now, fate or free will, that governs things, but what it _will be_ will be decided in 1999."

"1999?"

"Everything, from the fate of humanity to the very nature of 'fate' in space-time—that's what you were asking, by the way, about whether or not there is free will—will be _decided_. Everything rests on the decision of one chosen soul."

"…like, one person?"

"Yes."

"One _human_? But what right does _one_ human have to decide the fate of humanity?"

"Don't look at me. I didn't orchestrate the system."

"But, what's going to happen in 1999? Seishirou-san?" Seishirou did not respond. Subaru sat up straight and twisted around to shake his shoulder. "But… that makes no sense. If there is no 'time', there is no future to be decided. It's already in effect. Right?"

Seishirou did not respond. Subaru sighed, nuzzling further back into Seishirou's arms and listening contentedly to Seishirou's heartbeat. Seishirou tightened his embrace and kissed the top of Subaru's head. The sun was setting; Subaru estimated that it would be dark in about an hour. He sighed and closed his eyes, realizing for the first time that day how utterly exhausted he was.

Subaru didn't know how long he slept. He vaguely remembered slipping into consciousness after dark, still sitting out in the waves, shivering, both he and Seishirou covered in goose-bumps, and feeling Seishirou fingering around the hems of his gloves. Subaru had made a muffled protest before drifting back into what may have been a dream about them sitting on the beach, for all he knew. It was a restless, exhausted sleep in which one dreams about one's surroundings, or in which one dreams about waking up several times in the night when that does not actually happen. Subaru remembered Hokuto-chan screaming at Seishirou-san at one point—something about how _nice_ it was that they were getting close, but somebody was going to catch a death of cold—and, the next time he was conscious, being bundled up in towels in the front seat of the vet-van with the heater going full-blast, and with mountain forests and the sheet-metal guard-rail running past the window. When he looked to his right, he saw Seishirou-san driving and smiling to himself, half-sardonically, half-amusedly, the moonlight glaring off his glasses, before falling asleep once again.

It was then that Subaru dreamed briefly of two young boys, both with messy, black hair, and a young girl with golden-brown hair in a torn dress. The younger of the two boys had promised to always protect 'Kotori', whom Subaru assumed was the girl, and then, the older of the two boys had hooked the younger boy's pinky with his own and said "As long as you protect Kotori, I will protect you. That is a promise." Subaru knew intuitively that these actions had been carried out just hours before; in retrospect, hours before, he had felt a charged, _meaningful_ current in the ocean at a point that he then knew was somehow related.

Subaru woke in a cold sweat in his own bed, shaking and confused. He had zero trouble pushing that dream to the back of his mind after Seishirou's injury and the end of the 'bet' until he met Shirou Kamui nine years later. By that time, though, he knew what Seishirou-san had been talking about at the beach; but, at that point, he never thought he would be so intimately involved in the boys' personal lives.

* * *

"_But I think… just because we desire 'free will', it exists. It's just a question of whether or not having 'free will' is like beating your head against a brick wall or not."_

"_That 'will', that 'desire', may be fated."_

"_You're confusing me, Seishirou-san."_

* * *

**1999**

_You're confusing me, Seishirou-san. _

_Where did you go? It's been weeks upon weeks. _

_Where are you? I miss you so much._

Twenty-five-year-old Sumeragi Subaru sat up from laying flat on his bed and staring at the ceiling, smoking. Yuzuriha was knocking on his door and calling his name.

_What are you up to, Seishirou-san? What do you want with Kamui and Fuuma?_

"Yes?" he called through the door.

"Subaru-san, I'm sorry to bother you, but Fuuma-chan is back, and you said you wanted to talk to him this afternoon before he got dressed for the dance, didn't you?"

"Oh… yes." Subaru sighed heavily, sat up, and extinguished his cigarette in the glass ashtray perched on the edge of his bed. "Thank you. Please ask him to wait for me in the bathroom and to go ahead and fill the tub with ice water."

* * *

(1) Depeche Mode – "Enjoy the Silence" 


	18. Creating a Sociopath

**Obligatory Author's Warning: This chapter is contains content that is disturbing. Violent. Sick. Wrong. I do not say that lightly. I disturbed myself looking back on this chapter to _edit_ it. If you do not want to read about what would be done to turn a near-toddler into a sadistic sociopath for the rest of his life, I suggest skipping the section marked '1971' until you see the section marked '1999'. I felt it was a necessary tangent, but a tangent nonetheless, so it can be skipped without losing track of the main plot.**

* * *

The Sakurazukamori Clan had originally been assembled centuries ago from a motley selection of Japan's social outcasts, those who would nowadays be called 'psychopaths' or 'sociopaths', or, more recently, sufferers of the euphemistically entitled 'antisocial personality disorder'. Males and the much rarer females who fit extreme molds – charismatic cult leaders with zero regard for their underlings' welfare, megalomaniacs and pathological liars, serial killers and rapists – were collected under covert mandates by the Shogunate and bred for their desired traits, producing a line of offspring that was noticeably 'off', but not as purely composed of _calm_ sociopaths as the Shogunate's leaders desired.

Scant few of the children were pure, biological sociopaths from birth—humans void of remorse or emotion—and those few who actually _were _displayed a discouraging lack of patience, control, and temperance. Most of these pure sociopaths were violent, aggressive, and plain _angry_, all traits undesirable in elite assassins. Intelligent though many of these pure sociopaths were, they were unruly and unwilling to cooperate with the Shogunate's programs. They were more than willing to study onmyoujitsu, as it served a purpose and relived their constant, emotionless boredom, but upon completing their training, they all split and became a threat to the Shogunate that had first trained them.

Those children who were not pure sociopaths soon proved to be more useful. Through years of trial and error and primitive psychological studies, the Shogunate discerned that those children who were either only slightly 'off' or normal from birth and who were psychologically 'programmed' from infancy served as far better assassins. It took decades to devise a program that _produced_ a calm, balanced sociopath from near-scratch, and many raving mad adolescents were shot and buried in mass graves in the process. Perhaps through a complex web of inbreeding from the original trial generation, or perhaps through incredible psychological and emotional strength, one girl was produced who survived the training program _intact_, save for her utter dearth of remorse or emotion after its completion. Her multiple repressed neurosises were negligible in the face of the closest success the Shogunate had achieved in the decades after the program was started.

This girl, the first to be given the surname "Sakurazuka" for this particular instance, was introduced to the guardian sakura tree, and she became the first Sakurazukamori. In the generations that followed it became more apparent that the environmental sociopaths, though just as remorseless those purely biological, were just as likely to turn against their creators, and were perhaps deadlier in their retained scraps of humanity. It also became apparent that their loyalties lied far more intimately in a bond with the guardian tree than they did with the government's interests. The Sakurazukamori line had taken a life of its own separate from its intended purpose, that 'life' being directly opposed to that of the parallel Sumeragi clan, which was also originally formed for to benefit the Shogunate, but had taken its own path. In the following generations, the two clans moved further from their roots and developed more intimate, idiosyncratic customs, and their new, secret lives and motives were obscured from the Japanese government. The government attempted to infiltrate the two clans, only to the loss of many of their best spies, and thereafter left the clans to their own devices so long as they mustered when needed, no questions asked of their methods so long as they got the job done without making too much of a mess.

By November 22, 1965, when the thirteenth Sakurazukamori was born, the Sakurazukamori training program had degenerated to the control of a handful of capable 'programmers' on the payroll of a maverick, occult-related branch of the Japanese government. They were brutal, brilliant psychiatrists specializing in torture and relying upon terror, drugs, and electroshock to create sociopaths for the Clan line. In short, they were people who could easily be mistaken to have taken a great deal more inspiration from George Orwell's _1984_ than they cared to admit.

The botched lobotomy attempts of the early twentieth century had been abandoned after producing several 'vegetables', though the trainers had more recently dabbled in electroshock to the frontal lobe after psychiatric reports were published proclaiming that biological psychopathic tendencies originated in faulty connections in that portion of the brain. The only Sakurazukamori to receive that treatment in addition to her normal 'treatment' regimen, Sakurazuka Setsuka, survived miraculously uninhibited, though otherwise unaffected as a result of electroshock alone. When the treatment was tried with higher voltage on Setsuka's twin sister, Maaya, she turned into a dribbling mess to be euthanized by Setsuka herself, who by that point performed the task with only the complaint that the blood stained her white dress. After these failures, it was decided that the thirteenth child would be programmed using older, tried-and-true methods.

What was once an incestuous family had in the past century become promiscuous, and an increasing number of Sakurazuka were turning out to be homosexual. Vestiges of the original 'sociopath generation' had been severely diluted from the Sakurazuka bloodline over the decades, and, as a result, though they were almost indistinguishable from pure sociopaths even to themselves, the Sakurazukamori displayed disturbing faults despite their programming. The faults were minute and often oppressed to the point that they went unrealized for years but were so regular that, through some odd twist of mercy, the Tree had declared that a Sakurazukamori's ultimate reward would be death at the hands of the one he or she loved, and that person would, in turn, become the new Sakurazukamori, fulfilling an additional immortal element in honor of his or her predecessor.

While performing a routine organization of unsolved case files in the early 1990's, a detective's intern noticed that somebody had taped a quote cut from a book to the cover of the case file regarding the disappearance of the final two Sakurazukamori 'trainers' in 1974:

"_Nothing happened to me… _I _happened. You can't reduce me to a set of influences. You've given up good and evil for behaviorism… nothing is ever anybody's fault. Look at me… can you stand to say I'm evil? Am I evil?"_

The intern recognized the quote as being a one of Dr. Lecter's from Thomas Harris's _The Silence of the Lambs_, but, beyond that and its obvious implications, nobody knew why exactly somebody had chosen that particular quote for the "Sakura-Assassins" case file. Masumoto Kenji, one of the 'trainers' who went missing, was known to be a sociopath himself with a special taste for non-sexual child torture, so some investigators assumed it was a reference to him. One of the interns with a penchant for conspiracy theories assumed somebody was referring to the mysterious "Sakura-Assassin" him-or-herself, a question addressing the most basic concern plaguing those who monitored the Sakurazuka line: is the sociopath truly brought out of the child, or is the job becoming less and less complete as discipline flags and the bloodline thins?

Her fellow interns blew her off as nuts, and the quote and its case file were shoved back in the file cabinet behind more pressing cases.

The case file in question referenced a disappearance from a hospital ward that had been the subject of international conspiracy and speculation for several years. The patient—a nine-year-old boy who had remained in a coma for almost a month as a result of overdosing on illegal memory-altering drugs—his mother, and two visiting men of no blood or marital relation disappeared without a trace, leaving only splattered blood and the scent of sakura in the hospital room. The popular story went like this: a nurse down the hall heard yelling and gunshots, but by the time she reached the room, the two visiting men, the patient, and his mother were gone, and the floor and walls were spattered with blood in arcs reminiscent in formation of somebody leaving a high-powered water hose spewing and jumping on the floor. During the police department's questioning, the bewildered nurse claimed through shivers and sips of strong sedative tea that, beyond smelling of blood, the room smelled like Ueno Park in spring.

The international tabloids got their hands on the crime scene photographs and ran a story highlighting the fact that even though the Japanese police knew the names of the inpatient and his mother, and knew that both had been diagnosed with clinical psychosis, their suspect list featured only the names of the nurses on duty during the time of the murder. The tabloids dug up age-old conspiracy theories of a government cover-up of an ancient clan of elite assassins, and, for a few years, the urban legend of the "Sakura-Assassins" resurged. Every person who had disappeared without a trace in Japan for the past four-hundred years was assumed to be prey of the mysterious Assassins, and multiple television specials and small-time publications traced the victims' pasts for reasons the Japanese government would conveniently want them to disappear. Specialists in sociopath psychology and Eastern occultism claimed the existence of obscure sects dedicated to the feeding of vampire sakura trees, and claimed the existence of medical experiments records of Orwellian torture programs to create 'the perfect sociopath' out of toddlers. Everything seemed to fit perfectly, and, when placed in a historical context with a smattering of facts that just happened to be obscure but correct, it was assumed that _all_ the facts presented had to be true as a part of the package.

The information presented in this way was, in fact, riddled with inaccuracies and sheer fantasy. The Japanese government had planted faulty, spectacular information to feed the conspiracy mill and misdirect those vestiges of truth that had been uncovered by the civilian population during the generations the Sakurazukamori line had been in place. The Sakura-Assassins craze died down as the media directed the world's attention to other matters, and the Japanese government considered itself in the clear for the time being. There would always be inquisitive prodders who would get a little too close to the truth, but so long as the general public was kept in the dark, they would consider their job well done.

Several years after Sakurazuka Seishirou assumed control of the Clan at the age of fifteen in 1980, any questions regarding the solidity of his psychotic state were allayed, and nobody in the government ever again bothered to question whether the boy was a pure sociopath. Originally, government monitors thought he was _too_ calm and balanced given his horrific background at the hands of the 'trainers'. He was a productive and functional enough member of society to graduate from an elite high school with honors and enter an undergraduate program for veterinary medicine at Tokyo University. However, through scraps of evidence gathered through a joint probe of the Sumeragi and Sakurazukamori lines in 1990, it became evident that the sociopath-programming performed on the most recent Sakurazuka was, to the fullest extent of the government's knowledge, the most complete job ever recorded in the Clan logs. There would be no botches with him as there had been with his mother. He was the perfect Sakurazukamori. He would have been much more useful if he gave any damn whatsoever about the government's task list for him.

* * *

**1971**

"How was school today, Seishirou-kun?"

"Good."

"Did you mind your teacher?"

"Yes."

Kenji, one of the men in black suits, pressed a sticky, circular patch centered around a metal node against five-year-old Seishirou's temple. Seishirou twitched and tried to worm away, fighting the impulse to bolt from the brutal man and hide in a corner, screwing his eyes shut and making himself as small as possible. Terror aside, he didn't like the cold dot in the patch, and the sticky pads sometimes gave him a static shock that made his flyaway hairs drift for a while. Kenji jumped away and cuffed Seishirou's ear just as Seishirou tried to kick him in the shin, clutching Kari to his chest protectively.

"Mind your temper, Seishirou-kun," said the older man in a black suit, seated cross-legged across the opposite shrine wall. "You do not show anger. Do you want us to tell your mother you've been a bad boy today?"

Seishirou buried his chin in Kari's head, glowering over Kari's velvet snout.

–_Pulling Seishirou up by his arm, shaking, throwing him to the cold floor—the floor, smash, nose shatters, blood in his mouth, crying—"You do not cry; you get even"—he jumped at Kenji's leg; the man fended him off, bent his arm backwards; it snapped, the bone popped out of its socket—grinding the shattered bone together, open, marrowed edges grinding like sandpaper, splintering pain—crying—_Kari, Kari, we have to be strong, we have to kill the man who hurt us, we weren't fast enough—_shaking Seishirou by his broken arm, stabbing pain, vomiting in pain, begging, stop, stop—"You never beg; you are proud_"—no, no, please stop, please stop—"_Clean it up"—thrown into the vomit, cheek-first, disgusted, bleeding into the mess, it's disgusting, it's hot_—please, please, it hurts, it stinks, I want Mommy, I want Kari—"_Clean it up. Use your clothes. You're weak. You're weak."_—I want Mommy. Mommy, Mommy, don't be disappointed. Kari and I aren't crying. We'll kill the man who hurt us, Mommy—

"No," said Seishirou. His right shoulder was wracked by the screws as he hugged Kari tighter, pushing against the inside of the bored holes in the shattered bone. He bit back a pain-induced rush of bile. His right arm was in a sling, and his shoulder and upper arm were fanned by an array of long screws supported by metal slats that reminded him of the Erector sets at school, the base wrapped with white gauze edging brown around the punctures with old blood and old puss. If he turned his head to the left too far, the edge of one of the support slats touched his nose and jarred the inside of the sore bone.

_Don't cry. We'll make Mommy proud. We don't cry. We're special._

_--Kenji was the brutal man, the enforcer, the one who always knocked Seishirou back into line if he showed emotion. Seishirou was allowed dissent and snark, and he was allowed to strike back, but if one flicker of emotion showed—any anger, or sadness, or pain, or fear—he was locked in The Room with Kenji. Kenji had whips. Kenji twisted his arms and legs. Kenji threatened him with whips with metal bits in the thong that he said would stick in Seishirou's skin and muscle and rip out every time he was lashed, and Seishirou didn't want that, did he? So, Seishirou had to be good, and strong, and patient, and silent—_

"Seishirou-kun, look over here now."

Seishirou grudgingly faced the older man in the black suit across the shrine entryway. Kenji was whispering to the other man, handing him the control panel. Seishirou glared; he and Kari knew what that panel was for, and the men didn't need to whisper about it as though he did not. He was a smart boy. Smart and strong.

_--The hospital was scary, but Seishirou wasn't allowed to cry, because no matter where the nurses took him, no matter which back rooms, no matter which operating rooms he was wheeled to, delirious with pain, feverish, and terrified, the brutal man was always there, watching. If Seishirou cried, it would be _worse _next time, and Seishirou knew from experience that no matter how bad he thought it was, the body was capable of feeling worse pain, more terror—the nurses said, 'You can tell us the truth. What happened to you? Were you beaten?' But Seishirou couldn't say. The Man would find him. The Man would beat him with the whip with metal bits and tear his skin off—_

"Seishirou-kun," said the older man, "how have you been doing in school lately?"

Seishirou shrugged and rotated his toe on its axis behind the opposite ankle.

"Have you started any fights?"

Shrug. _Glancing around the room uneasily, spine crawling, wanting to crouch low and slink away, looking for an escape, watching Kenji so he could stare straight ahead as soon as he looked at him—_

"I got your report card the other day, and we're very proud of you, Seishirou. You got high marks."

Seishirou hugged Kari and fought to keep his expression savory. The man nodded.

"We're going to tell your mother you've been a very good boy, Seishirou. She'll be proud of you. She's raised a good, strong boy."

Seishirou stared.

"Have you been making any friends at school, Seishirou-kun? Yamada-sensei says that you haven't made a single friend but Kari."

"…Kari and I don't need friends. We are alone."

"Do you fight alone, Seishirou?"

"A Sakurazukamori always fights alone." The words sounded dead to him, as often as he had heard them and been made to recite them, but they had worked their way into the very grooves of his mind and bone. He was alone. He was special. He did not feel.

"Are you sad to be alone, Seishirou-kun?"

"No. I do not feel sadness."

"Do you really not feel sadness, or do you say that because you do not want to be beaten?"

Seishirou bit his lip. "I do not feel sadness. I do not fear being beaten."

"It's okay not to like physical pain, Seishirou-kun. It is okay to _fear_ physical pain. That is just how our bodies are set up. But you must not show it. You must not show a soul."

Seishirou bit his lip and shrugged.

"You do not feel emotions, Seishirou-kun."

Seishirou shook his head frantically.

"You act too wild and emotional, Seishirou-kun. You must learn calm and temperance. You must learn to be tranquil and patient. We will work on that."

Seishirou glanced at the door. He did not like the sound of that. 'Working on something' usually meant he ended up in The Room for doing something wrong when he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. If he answered what he knew they wanted to hear, they said he was just saying it, and beat him anyway until he did not even remember what they wanted him to say in the first place. But, when he answered the next time, dead, sore, and spirit-broken, they were satisfied for some reason. It was usually what he had said the first time, and Seishirou did not see the difference beyond half-believing what he had said this time around.

"Do you miss your mother, Seishirou-kun?"

Seishirou eyed Kenji, who was taking a glass cup off of one of the shrine's carved wood tables and setting it in the center of the tatami floor.

"No. I would step on her corpse and move on if she begged me to…" He wrinkled his nose, trying to find the childish words to describe what he was feeling. "…not kill her."

"Do you see this glass, Seishirou-kun?"

"Yes."

"Break it."

Seishirou approached the upside-down glass carefully, still clutching Kari tightly to his chest, and stomped on it. He howled; his socked foot crashed through the cup's basin and stomped on shards. He jumped away from the glass, hopping for a moment and screaming in pain and shock, staring in horror at the bloody, mangled mess his socked foot had become, before falling onto his side and burying his face into Kari's flank, screaming. He was too terrified to look back at his own foot.

"You brought this upon yourself, Seishirou-kun," said the older man. The two men had watched impassively; Kenji stepped forward and hauled Seishirou up by the scruff of his school uniform shirt. "You did not think before you acted. This pain is your fault. Should Kenji rub your nose in your mess so you see what the price is for being a fool?"

Seishirou's spine shot with fear. He knew that meant the brutal man would shove him face-first into the jagged, bloody glass left on the tatami mat.

_I cannot beg. I must be calm. I do not cry. I am special._

"…no." The older man nodded in approval. Seishirou's throat hurt from forcing himself to hold back his cries of pain and terror. It had been a few months since he had last wet or soiled himself in terror, but he had long since learned to control that—it was humiliating, and the punishment was equally so. Kenji never let him forget what a disgusting, cowardly little waif he was for that behavior. "I'll be good. I'll think before I act."

"Good boy. Kenji, set Seishirou down so we can continue without hurting his foot. I think we will require antibiotics and a few stitches this time. And no anesthetic; Seishirou needs to learn mistakes do not cost lightly."

Seishirou's breath caught as the brutal man stretched his legs out in front of him and set him down on the floor. He knew what that odd word meant. It meant he got a shot, but after that stitches did not hurt. He knew that if he didn't have it, he didn't get a shot, but the stitches hurt and he had to bite on Kari's ear so he didn't scream. If he was caught biting when the brutal man's back wasn't turned, he got cuffed, and the nurse pulled just a little too hard on the thread.

_--"You're well past the age of crying. You are no infant. You are entering kindergarten. Everybody cries but you, because you do not feel. You are special."—_

_--I am special. I do not feel. I am different.—_

"Seishirou-kun, if that glass was your mother, would you feel any different than you felt just now stepping on it?"

Seishirou thought for a moment, wondering which answer would save him an afternoon in hell. He had picked up that they usually responded best to honesty, even if it wasn't the answer they wanted. "…if my mother hurt my foot like that, I'd be angry."

The men chuckled. Seishirou watched them and shifted, trying to get his mind off the pain in his foot and fight off tears. They were casually glancing at the sticky pad control box every now and then. "…I mean, I think… I'd be angry at myself for making a foolish mistake."

"Your mother, or a glass cup: what is the difference, Seishirou?"

Seishirou thought. "My mother is a person. My mother is my mother."

"Do you love one over the other?"

"I do not love." The answer was automatic, bone-engraved.

"Are they equally easy to break, Seishirou?"

"My mother wouldn't cut up my foot."

"Does one mean more to you?"

"No." Seishirou frowned. His mother was his mother; of course she meant more to him, but… "…why are you putting a rock out there?"

"Look." The brutal man kicked the rock across the room at the older man's nod. "If you could stand, you'd kick this. You do understand that we are only making you sit because we want you to be able to walk, not because we do not want you to feel the pain of your foolishness, don't you, Seishirou-kun?"

"Yes."

"Would kicking a rock across the road feel any different to you than breaking your mother's arm like Kenji did yours, Seishirou-kun? What if you saw your mother suffering in screws and a sling like you are right now, cut up all over and sore?"

Seishirou hugged Kari. "Kari and I would not feel a thing. Humans are like rocks to us. We kick them, and we wouldn't feel it."

"Kari is very special to you, isn't she? She goes with you everywhere, doesn't she?"

Seishirou remained silent, shocked. He knew he was nailed, but he was having difficulty grasping why. The older man leaned forward kindly. "Is Kari more special to you than that rock, Seishirou-kun? What about that glass?"

Seishirou clutched Kari to his chest fearfully. "…you can't take Kari," he said stubbornly. "You can't take Kari! Kari's strong; Kari doesn't feel! Kari won't hurt nothing! Kari's different!"

The brutal man whacked Seishirou in the nose, flat on his back. Seishirou sat bolt upright, alternately grasping his nose and reaching out, bellowing, as Kari was slipped from his loose grasp. He overbalanced and caught himself on his bloodied hands.

"NO! GIVE HER BACK! GIVE HER BACK!" He was bawling. "KARI! KARI!"

"No, no, Seishirou-kun," said the older man. He waved to the brutal man that he should not whack Seishirou for such a disgusting display of emotion. The brutal man turned and faced Seishirou half-amusedly, cradling Kari back-up in his forearm and stroking her head as though she were a real pig. "Kari is an object, a plush pig. And even if she were real, nothing is more precious to you than anything else. Kari is like that glass cup to you. Kari is like that pebble to you. Do you understand, Seishirou-kun? No different."

"No!" Seishirou reached out and flopped forward onto his legs, reaching out to the brutal man, who was sliding the rice-paper door open and walking into the back room. "Kari's not weak; don't hurt Kari! We promise we don't feel! We'll be good! We won't cry no more over nothing! We don't love Mommy!"

"You talk too much, Seishirou-kun. You explain too much of yourself. Silence befits you best. You do not care if anybody understands you."

"—KARI! KARI!—"

"—You do not care about Kari any more than that glass cup. There is nothing in this world precious to you. Nothing. Kari is an object, trash to be thrown away."

Seishirou sniffled and wibbled, trying to gain control of his crying. The older man stared at him.

"There is nothing in this world, not one thing, not one special thing, not one acceptation, that is special to you, Seishirou-kun. There never has been. There never will be. Nothing but your pride is sacred to you, Seishirou-kun. Do you see what a fool you've been?" Seishirou was shaking with something that was second cousin to fear and hopelessness, but far more vague and dead. "You've been a very, very stupid boy, Seishirou-kun. Do you see how stupid you've been? You don't care for Kari. You've been very stupid. If you broke Kari, it would be just like breaking that glass cup. That is what you feel about Kari."

_--No. No. You're wrong. That isn't what I feel about Kari. Kari's different. Kari's not Mommy or a cup or a rock or anybody at school or Yamada-sensei. Kari's Kari.—_

_--"You're a foolish boy, Seishirou."—_

_--Please. Please, no. No. NO.—_

_--"You don't feel for Kari. You feel for nothing. There are no acceptations. There are no acceptations in this world. You will never feel for anything. Everything is like that rock. Everything is like that glass. No different."—_

_--PLEASE STOP. PLEASE STOP. IT HURTS SO BAD. MAKE IT STOP. PLEASE!—_

_--"You're feeling all this pain because of Kari. Do you hate Kari?"—_

--The weak die. The strong survive. Kari, I'm not going to die.—

_--sobbing, begging, sobbing—the ripping, the ripping of the flesh of his back and the knitted muscle beneath, the wretched pain, the screws in his shoulder knocked about and loose, bleeding, vomiting—_

_--"…I hate Kari."—_

_--"Wrong. You do not hate. Love and hate are the same. You attract to nothing. You do not hate. Kari is just an object. Do you hate the glass cup?"—_

_--"I hate the glass cup."—_

_--"Wrong. Your own stupidity makes you hurt. The glass cup is Kari is a rock is your mother. They are one and the same to you. A corpse. Trash."—_

_--"I hate myself."—_

_--The lashing wouldn't stop, wouldn't stop—the shrine nurse screamed "Stop it; he'll die of infection, the boy will bleed to death, he'll die!", but it didn't stop—"You do not hate yourself. You do not love yourself. You are indifferent to yourself. You are nothing to yourself. You do not hate yourself. You do not love yourself. You do not hate. You do not love."—_

_--"I do not hate."—_

_-- bone jarring from inside—_

_--"I do not love."—_

_--leaning against a wall, gasping, sobbing wretchedly, begging God to make the pain stop_—Mommy, Mommy, make the pain stop—

_--"Come, it's time to break another object. And then we will dress your wounds. We don't want you to get infected. Your shoulder may have to be re-set. I told Kenji not to jar that. It can't heal crookedly."—_

Seishirou stood in the shrine-room, shirtless and barefoot with his chest wrapped in bandages and his arm still in a sling, though his foot had long since healed. He had recently been fitted with glasses for his early onset of farsightedness, and the glasses were far too big for his face. Though the screws had been removed from his shoulder the other day and he carried himself coolly and upright, he was still a sorry sight. He stared levelly at the older man, waiting for him to speak.

"Happy seventh birthday, Seishirou-kun. Did you get a cupcake at school today?"

"Yes. It was delicious."

"You like sweets, don't you?"

"I love sweets."

"That's excellent. I think Kenji got you a cake you'll love, then. It's deathly sweet, like pure marzipan. You'll tell Kenji thank you, won't you?"

"I will."

The rice-paper door behind the man slid open, and Kenji walked into the room with Kari cradled in his forearm. Seishirou looked Kenji over carefully.

"I don't see a cake."

The older man laughed. "Patience, Seishirou-kun. Look, it's your old friend, Kari. How do you feel about that?"

Seishirou shrugged. Kenji set Kari in the center of the room and pushed the sticky-circle onto Seishirou's temple again. Seishirou stood quietly until Kenji finished and stood beside the older man again.

"Now, destroy Kari, Seishirou-kun."

Seishirou hesitated. The older man was glancing from the control box to Seishirou, and Kenji was crossing his arms and staring Seishirou down.

"What's the matter, Seishirou-kun?"

_-- "The glass cup is Kari is a rock is your mother."--_

"…I have one hand. Kari is hard to rip."

Kenji handed Seishirou a knife. Seishirou stared at the weapon, tested its blade lightly, winced when it sliced the pad of his forefinger, hesitated, and nodded coolly. He walked to Kari and toed her onto her side, stiff, stubby legs sticking out at right angles to her pale pink belly, and knelt, pinning her cylindrical chest with his knee and starting to slice her limb at the base, pinning her left forearm with his injured hand.

Kari started screaming.

Saw, saw, saw. Pink fabric separating at the seams, pink threads snapping under the blade. Kari was screaming, her stitched, motionless mouth smiling under her snout.

"Seishirou, it hurts! Please, make it stop! Please!"

Saw, saw, saw. Screaming. The pig was still, motionless on her back, smiling gently at the ceiling with her left foreleg hanging by threads, cotton spilling up from the wound. Saw, saw, saw. Agonizing, long seconds passed. Another leg, then another. The screaming grew louder. Harsh panting. Unholy, tortured screaming. Begging.

"SEISHIROU, AREN'T I YOUR FRIEND? DEAR GOD—STOP—screaming—screaming—PLEASE! AS YOUR ONE AND ONLY FRIEND, I BEG OF YOU, SHOW THIS LITTLE BIT OF MERCY—"

Saw, saw, saw. The cotton guts spilled out, puffing up out of Kari's chest like clouds. Seishirou stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth; his arm was getting tired, his glasses kept slipping down his nose, and Kari had no neck, so sawing her head off would mean sawing the width of her body. He gritted his teeth and rested his arm for a moment, looking Kari over as she screamed, stock still on her back, smiling, smiling.

"PLEASE!" Her static-shot voice cracked. "SEISHIROU, JUST LET ME DIE, IF YOU EVER FELT ONE SCRAP OF LOVE FOR ME."

"Why?" He shook out his wrist and pushed his glasses up his nose, glancing over his handiwork on Kari. "My arm is tired. I am resting."

Kari screamed and screamed as Seishirou rested, and then he got back to work. Saw, saw, saw. Kari kept screaming and begging, always smiling, motionless and stiff, swaying back and forth on her narrow back with Seishirou's sawing motions. A few clumsy centimeters into Kari's neck, a black, grilled device tumbled out of the cotton edge-first onto the ground and fell on its back. From that moment, her screams were even louder and clearer. Seishirou regarded the black box with the same awareness as a child who has pulled the voicebox out of a talking toy—that is where the voice comes from, and it is mechanical, running on batteries, but it is still the toy's _voice_.

Seishirou jammed the knife into the center of the black box, smashing plastic and wire, and Kari's voice died immediately. The room was silent.

Saw, saw, saw.

Seishirou hit the center of her throat, and, all of a sudden, he stopped. He stood and shook his hand out.

"That was hard. My hand is sore."

"Good boy, Seishirou-kun," said the older man. "You did very well." Kenji stooped down to sweep up Kari's remnants. "You have had a long day. You must be hungry. I am sure Nakata has a good, hot supper ready for you in the kitchen."

Seishirou did not watch Kenji leave the room with Kari's body and guts in a dustpan. "I am hungry."

"Good. You're going to start shooting up like a weed soon, so you need to eat well. In a few years it will be time to start you on additional growth supplements. You'll be very tall and strong."

Seishirou turned the large words over in his mind for a moment. "Does that mean I can still eat sweets?"

"If you exercise regularly and eat well, I promise you a good desert at least once a day. If you keep up this good work, I'll make sure they're extra good." The older man bowed slightly and smiled. "I'm proud of you, Seishirou-kun. You have a long way to go, but you grow stronger and more like your true self every day."

Seishirou smiled. "Thank you, sir."

Days passed, and then weeks. The men sent for obscure mage-healers to make Seishirou's wretchedly scarred skin whole and smooth again. Seishirou went to school and made good marks, keeping to himself during recess, playing with children and talking jovially but never fully getting to know them, always drifting. He never showed a particular penchant for any one group of kids. Whereas most kids with glasses as overtly dorky as Seishirou's would be teased within an inch of their lives, the teachers noticed that students tended to give Seishirou a wide berth after having teased him only a few times, electing instead to whisper about him behind his back. Sometimes he played a little too roughly, and apologized most charmingly when he had to explain himself to the teacher, but something about his apologies were far too smooth and sincere for a seven-year-old. Something in his eyes was dead behind the smile, flickering like a rare flash of light across water, but noticeable. All the teachers thought they were the only ones to notice it, hallucinating, or perhaps crazy, but the kids were sensible enough to trust what they saw.

Seishirou-kun was always kind and helpful, but something was _wrong_ with him. When students would pass a dead bird on the playground, most of the boys would poke at it, fascinated, save for those sensitive souls who stayed on the other side of the playground so nobody would tease them for being upset, and most of the girls would cry or act disgusted save for those few tomboys who threw their bravado out with the boys. Seishirou regarded it with all the neutral detachment of an adult, looking it over with that hidden, dead flicker, before moving on. He handled the dead birds with more calm than the teachers, who winced in distaste when shooing the students away so the body could be cleared away. Seishirou once carried a mauled pigeon to the fence with his bare hands, scooping up the guts that spilled over the bird's chest as he carried it, and only winced and jumped back when his first throw was too short and the carcass splattered into the dust in front of him, dashing spats of blood and clear fluid across his glasses. He disliked being sticky with dust and politely asked if he could be excused to wash up, but, beyond that, seemed only vaguely annoyed with his lack of throwing aptitude.

The school counselor had long since given up on him by this point, so when he was sent in yet again with a report entitled "throwing dead birds", he was asked to sit quietly with a Tinker Toys set while the school contacted his mother. He ended up switching schools with explicit orders to keep a low profile, lest she run out of elementary schools that would be willing to take him.

It was about this time They started giving him pills with his dinner, which did not bother Seishirou since the only sharply raised his appetite and made him feel invigorated. They were "vitamins" and "supplements", he was told, fore-cursers to the growth hormones that were being cooked up for him to take when he got of age. Then there were the white pills, which made Seishirou start to forget things. It started small; he would forget where he had placed things, or which song he had just heard in the car, or which pages he had to read in his primer for homework. Then the pills changed shape, from small and egg-like to larger, beige, and octagonal, and he started to forget what day it was. He would get up, ready for school, only to be reminded that it was Sunday. He would wake up, and four days had passed without his knowledge. Then, the pills changed again, and it was weeks—

Seishirou's stomach and throat were sore when he woke up in a hospital bed, a tube fed down his esophagus into his stomach. He was surrounded by equipment reading his heart rate and breathing, beeping off-white boxes connected to patches on his arms and chest. A nurse was frantically reading all of the machines attached to him, weaving through crossings of off-white wires and plastic tubes to reach panels. He gasped around the feeding tube, sputtering. He had had feverish dreams of being rolled around the hospital, vomiting, hearing words like "overdose", "blood poisoning", and "neurological damage", and after that, absolutely nothing. His brain felt as though it had been pounded and re-arranged from the inside by a jackhammer, the pathways and the delicate webs of neurons sizzling and vivid behind a dull sheen.

There were two men in black suits standing by the bed, somehow familiar—_Kenji and the older man, that's right, them—_and his mother, Sakurazuka Setsuka. Kenji had a huge, white cake balanced in his hands, surmounted by candles too blurred by Seishirou's fuzzy vision to count.

"Happy ninth birthday, Seishirou-kun," said the older man.

Seishirou regarded the cake coolly, sitting up straighter and coughing. "…what happened to me?" He gagged; it hurt to talk. His voice was raspy and ruined, barely audible. The nurse helped him sit up and whispered that he needed to hold still while she removed his feeding tube. The process was highly unpleasant, akin to pulling a clumsy plastic snake out of his throat, and his throat was left horribly raw when she was done, but the resulting freedom was well worth the ordeal. She left when she was done, ruffling his hair and promising to return soon with Dr. Akimoto to check on him.

Seishirou looked at his mother quizzically.

"You've been in the hospital for a month, dear," said Setsuka. She knelt by the bed and took Seishirou's hand. "How are you feeling? Do you remember what happened?"

"…overdose?" he whispered. The word floated in his wrecked mind, trying to find a connection in the loose sea of neurons.

Setsuka glared sharply at the older man and Kenji, the latter of whom shrugged, the older of whom stared at Setsuka impassively.

"He has no idea what happened, trust me. He must have heard that word floating around this room. I told the damn nurses to keep their mouths shut."

"Is it really my birthday?"

"No, we missed it by a few days," said Setsuka. "As soon as we got the news that you were waking up, we got this cake out of the fridge and jetted down here to celebrate. I'm sorry if it's a bit cold and stiff, but it had to keep." She stroked Seishirou's hand. "Honey? It's time to say good-bye to Kenji and Tanaka. They say that you're ready to study onmyoujitsu full time with me. Isn't that grand? We'll be like two peas in a pod from now on."

Seishirou looked at Kenji and Tanaka over Setsuka's head, coolly, staring them down. He knew them and knew their faces, drawing upon former cold, intellectual knowledge, but his knowledge about what exactly they had to do with him was purely intuitive. They had taught him and made him strong. They had made him realize that he is special.

He wanted to hate them, but he did not. They were merely there.

"Are you hungry?" said Setsuka. Kenji set the cake down on Seishirou's lap and pulled Seishirou's glasses out of his front pocket, pushing them over Seishirou's eyes. "The nurse said you could eat a bit if you like."

Seishirou could count the nine candles now: thin, dripping, and spiraled white-and-blue, like a barber's pole. The light wavered across his glasses. There was a smiling pink pig painted on the white cake's face with icing, and the delicate words "Happy Birthday Seishirou!" had been scrawled beneath the pig in careful, red Kanji.

Setsuka took the cake from Seishirou's hands and set it on the bedside table as he sat up and coughed, taking deep drinks of water. Kenji and Tanaka were talking amongst themselves as Setsuka leaned over and whispered into Seishirou's ear, smiling. She took the cake off the table and carefully placed it in the cellophane-faced cardboard box that had been set on the foot of the bed, saying that it would be a terrible waste not to keep it.

Seishirou smiled.

* * *

The cake was deathly sweet, like pure marzipan.

* * *

**1999**

Seishirou sighed and sat back on his heels, pulling a cigarette out of its box with his teeth and searching his pants pocket for his lighter with a deceptively steady hand. He was kneeling at the base of an intricate, meter-diameter pentagram he had drawn on his kitchen floor with black chalk, surmounted at each star-point by a dead candle. Though it was dusk, every light in the apartment was off, and the blackout curtains were drawn. When Seishirou flicked his lighter, the kitchen floor flared into momentary, guttering light; once it died, the embers of his cigarette were the brightest thing in the apartment, illuminating ghostly, blue smoke and thin ash.

The spell that had just extinguished had been simple enough to render. As often as he performed this spell, he was sure he could draw the pentagram and its corresponding border-sigils in his sleep by now. Tonight, its predictions had been especially clear. This was no divining spell in the purest sense of the word; the Sakurazukamori's various powers did not include future-sight. It was a simulation akin to a mathematical program, something that measured the probable paths and reactions energies would undergo if left unchecked as they currently were. Seishirou knew it was futile to place complete trust in the simulation, as human emotions were unpredictable, but it was a good place to start brainstorming. He rubbed his temple. Attractions were not the only energy measured; this was also a measure of _balance_, and Seishirou was already drafting a complicated mental flow-chart of causes and effects. He frowned.

_I can't let this go unchecked anymore. Things are going to go out of control. God damn it. I'm sick of playing this game. I'm getting worn out. I'm going to make a careless mistake. This is going to be a pain in the ass to balance out. Too far in one direction, and the balance tips back over the lip of destiny, I'm back at square one, and the war commences. Not far enough in that direction, restraints remained in place as they are, and I lose everything. _

_I've got to buy more time._

Seishirou took a deep suck of his cigarette and slowly exhaled, calming his nerves. _I've got to keep this balance in place longer. This is precarious as it is, defying fate. It's going to tip sooner or later, sooner if I don't do something. And if that happens, I don't know if I'll be able to halt things again. Once was enough. Fate's momentum is being dammed, and when it tips, it'll be all that much stronger…_

_God, this is a mess. _

_Fine, fine. It'll even out. Even like a balance—no! No, no balance. Have to stay on the edge. Can't balance out. Can't tip. Have to balance. Can't tip, can't balance. _

_You remember how to be utterly irresistible, don't you? _

_No balance; balance on the edge. Keep nudging, don't fall off the edge. Don't fall off the edge. It'll all be lost. _

* * *

"Just close your eyes and relax—as much as you can in that water, anyway. This will be over soon. You doing all right?"

"Um… super. Why are we doing this?" _I really hope nothing is poking out. Thank god for shrinkage…_

"Good."

"We're doing this because of 'good'?"

"I promise I will explain everything when we're done."

"Um, _okay_. Why not now?"

Subaru sighed. "My answer hasn't changed. You'll take too active a part in the spell if you know what I'm looking for. It would be like… like a placebo, or your guard would be up and you'd tip us off. You just need to lie there and relax. I promise this won't hurt you."

Subaru was checking the candles around the perimeter of the circular, Japanese tub in which Fuuma was lying of two inches of ice water, eyes screwed shut and clenching his arms against the cold, not daring to curl up lest the thin, white towel draped across his waist fall off. Every inch of his bare skin was goose-bumped. Fuuma sneezed; surely, if he had to strip down like this, the spell would be important enough for Subaru to have to wear his ceremonial robes, but Subaru was in his street clothes. Fuuma knew his logic was unsound, but since he was cross, it made sense. Subaru had originally wanted him stark naked, but had finally allowed Fuuma a purified washcloth, sure that its presence would not cloud the spell too much. Fuuma did not see why wearing swim trunks or boxers would ruin the spell, but Subaru had insisted. The cloth was near-transparent and clinging like hell, but it was still better than _nothing_. He kept telling himself that.

_You did agree to this_, Fuuma reminded himself. He shuddered as a chill raked up his body. Earlier, upon Subaru's vague request to strip down and get in the ice water, Fuuma had demanded an explanation before he would cooperate, but Subaru had insisted that it was imperative that Fuuma go into this with a clear, unprejudiced mind, and he promised that he would explain what he was doing after the spell's completion. Fuuma's curiosity, along with his biting guilt and corresponding eagerness to please Subaru—even if it meant humoring some odd onmyou urge—finally urged him into the tub, along with Subaru's insistence that Fuuma's life somehow depended on the spell's results.

_All right, come on. This is Subaru. He doesn't do stuff like this without a good reason. What's the worst thing that could happen, anyway? –no, don't even think about that. Too late. Er…_

"All right," said Subaru. Fuuma snapped his eyes open and stared warily, still half-thinking of the worst things that could happen. His teeth were starting to chatter. "We're ready."

"S-s-Subaru-s-san, _what the hell_ are we doing?"

Subaru walked to the door and switched the lights off. The room became pitch-dark save for the guttering candlelight and silent except for the thin water sloshing around Fuuma's ears. Subaru walked back to the edge of the tub in the wavering light and stared down at Fuuma, shadows flickering across his face.

"All right. This is a somewhat evasive spell, Fuuma-san, but I promise that I will be as gentle as possible. I don't think you'll notice anything, but if you do, please don't panic. I won't let anything happen to you."

"…okay."

"You've received martial arts training. I know you can do this. Make your presence as low-key as possible. If we're traced, we'll get deflected, and we'll never get a clear shot again. It's bad enough that I'm the one doing this; it's like flashing a strobe light over our heads. We need all the help we can get. All right?"

Fuuma stared back at Subaru and furrowed his eyebrows. There it was again: pieces of a puzzle he _should_ know and of which he knew the shape, but knew without details or a face. The viscous shadows slipped from his mind's grasp. He took a slow breath.

"This has to do with Sakurazuka Seishirou, doesn't it?"

Subaru seemed unaffected for a moment, meditating with the candles up-lighting his face in the dark, but then stared at Fuuma and narrowed his eyes suspiciously, regarding Fuuma with a look that bordered on nasty, or as close to nasty as Subaru had ever gotten with him. Fuuma blinked. _That's a yes._

"…how much do you remember about him?" asked Subaru.

Fuuma stared back, willing Subaru to believe what he was about to say. "…only a name. He's connected to you somehow. You lost the same eye he did because you wanted to; that's all I remember. Well, I know his title is 'doctor'. Of what, I don't know. I just remember that was his title. I'm assuming medical or something."

"Veterinary." Subaru looked Fuuma over slowly, rakishly. "…nothing else?"

"Nothing. I'm sorry."

Subaru stared for a long time before lifting his right hand with the index and middle fingers upraised and overlapped, not taking his eyes from Fuuma's.

"…all right, then. We're starting. Close your eyes and make yourself undetectable."

Fuuma sighed and closed his eyes, lowering his presence to the root of his chest and regulating his breathing to a calm, shallow pace as Subaru started to chant. His body warmed enough for him to unclench his arms and relax, concentrating on the dull sounds of his breathing and his heartbeat, pushing Subaru's low mantra to the back of his mind. Perhaps he was delusional, but he thought he had always been especially good at escaping detection like this, even if somebody was actively looking for him. He already had a knack for Being in Plain Sight and still not being noticed, even when he was not concentrating on going undetected.

Subaru's chanting charged with restrained tension, as though he was retaining an unruly force, and the water around Fuuma surged with equivalent energy. The backs of Fuuma's hands seared, and he choked on a scream of shock as Subaru's voice caught for a split second, no more noticeable than the flicker of a wingtip in a fan. The same wind buffeting the water lashed out, and Fuuma sensed the candle flames flutter flat and extinguish in the darkness. Subaru held his chant constant and rhythmic, rising and swelling with the tides of the spell so slightly that it seemed a constant rock in a rush of water.

Subaru raised his voice for the last few syllables of his chant, and, when he yelled his last word, the room's energy caught before dissipating and the wind died, no essence of the spell left save for the ice water sloshing against the sides of the tub. Fuuma took a deep, shuddering breath as the water calmed around him, trying to soothe the nerves along his spine, and noticed how tightly he had been gripping his forearms. His heart echoed dully with his ears half-submerged. _Okay. Calm down. Breathe. It's over._

"You can open your eyes now," Subaru said after a moment. Fuuma did and felt the backs of his hands in the pitch-darkness, relieved that the skin felt whole and unmarred. Subaru walked to the door and switched the lights on, momentarily blinding Fuuma.

"…well?" said Fuuma, staring at his hands as his eyes refocused. They _looked_ fine. He saw Subaru walk back to the edge of the tub out of the corners of his eyes and looked up, cradling his right hand in his left. As usual, Subaru was difficult to read, but to the extent of Fuuma's guessing ability seemed an odd mixture of comforted, confused, and torn.

"Here." Subaru pulled a huge, fluffy towel off of the wall-rack and handed it to Fuuma before facing the wall with his hands in his pockets and shoulders slumped. "Get dried off. You must be freezing."

Fuuma snatched the towel and dried himself off before wrapping the towel around his waist and stepping out of the tub to sit on its edge, still glancing at the backs of his hands every few seconds and feeling the ghosts of the searing twinge. Subaru turned around at Fuuma's prompting and stood with his hands behind his back, shoulders straight, staring off at the far wall. Fuuma wrung out the washcloth and arched his eyebrows.

"_Now_ are you going to tell me what you found out?"

"…you are marked as I thought you are."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Subaru sighed, absentmindedly reaching for his pocket before looking at Fuuma and replacing his hands behind his back. Fuuma set the wrung washcloth on the edge of the tub. "…it's a long story, not something you really need to worry about. You've got a dance to get ready for. I can tell you later."

"That's a very weak cop-out, Subaru-san."

Subaru gave Fuuma a vaguely annoyed look before sighing and staring off again. "In short, you have been marked by a very dangerous, deceptive man, a longtime enemy of mine. He's… a case I have been following for a long time, and for some reason, he's _still _got you tagged as his prey."

"Still? What is that supposed to mean?"

Subaru shrugged and made a non-committal noise. Fuuma stared at him, waiting for an answer.

"This man is Sakurazuka Seishirou?" _It can't be Seishirou-san. Seishirou-san's the most harmless guy I ever met in my life. _

"You are correct."

"_Why?_"

Fuuma cursed himself, glad Subaru was not watching him gape like an idiot. _Calm down. You don't know him, remember? _

Subaru stared off, thinking. He sighed. "Because he's the Sakurazukamori."

"The _what_?"

"The assassin of the sakura burial mound. His proper title is Sakurazukamori, the lone hunter. He's an assassin raised to take out enemies of the Japanese government, but he like all of the past ones has gone renegade. Their loyalties are to their Tree and to themselves alone; the government hardly uses them anymore. They learned their lesson. He's… _evil_ in every sense of the word. He's deceptive, heartless, dangerous, _treacherous_. He's the worst kind of traitor there is. He… betrays love, betrays intimacy without a thought. He's _sick_. He's got a lot of stuff really messed up in his head. That's who the Sakurazukamori is."

Fuuma fought to keep his expression neutral. _You can't mean Seishirou-san. That can't be right. Something… there has to be another explanation; that can't be right…_

"Really?" Fuuma's tongue felt heavy and dead. "Um, really?"

"Really."

"That's… wow. _Really._ This guy's stalking me? Really?"

Subaru gave Fuuma a wan look. "…_really._"

"_Why_?"

Subaru stared off silently for a while, then finally shrugged and reached for his pocket again. "I don't know. You had better get ready for the dance." He turned on his heel and walked out of the bathroom, pulling a cigarette out of his Mild Sevens box with his teeth. Fuuma followed him and grabbed his shoulder.

"Subaru-san, _come on_!"

Subaru violently shrugged Fuuma's hand off and froze for a moment, glaring over his shoulder and emanating dull rage and hatred, before checking himself and relaxing. The fabric of Subaru's white jacket was damp where Fuuma's hand had been, rumpled and dark enough to make Fuuma think he had grabbed Subaru a little too hard. Fuuma's tongue felt tied and heavy, and the flow of what he was about to ask died under Subaru's dull, simmering stare.

For a split second, Fuuma could have sworn that Sumeragi Subaru _snarled_ at him.

_Subaru-san, what the hell is wrong with you?_

The tension spread like a soap bubble and, finally, popped. Subaru closed his eyes and turned his back on Fuuma, resigned and slouched as usual, and clicked his lighter under his cigarette, shielding the flame with his other hand. He sighed and exhaled smoke, replacing his lighter in his pocket. He was quiet for a long time. Fuuma's nerves were still sizzling under vague, underlying tension.

"Subaru-san, uh…" Fuuma cursed his tongue, trying to work it around something, anything, any sort of apology, but for _what_, he was not quite sure. Subaru sighed walked down the hall. The tension dissolved, leaving Fuuma with the realization that he was standing in the cool hallway with naught but a towel wrapped around his waist. The sudden absence of unresolved tension felt like an anticlimactic void.

Subaru stopped for a moment at the top of the stairwell. "…I'm late for a job," he said quietly, almost shamefully, then started walking down. "I'll talk to you and Kamui after the dance."


	19. Ember Burning Bright

Thanks to the lovely Mefiant for beta-reading this chapter for me.

* * *

"I never said _any _of it was Fuuma-san's fault. That doesn't change the fact that he being here is placing everybody in the world in unnecessary danger." 

"Well, what do you suggest that we do? Kill the poor guy—"

"_No_. Would you—_listen_ for five minutes?"

Sorata was staring at Arashi over the top of his glass with eyebrows arched; Arashi stared back at him with her gloved fists in her lap, the only above-table sign of her irritation being a crease between her eyebrows. They were sitting at a table in the circular pavilion surrounded by sliding glass doors to the dance floor, which was circumscribed donut-fashion around the soundproofed center. Gray-white mist rose from marshy rivers and lagoons hemmed by subtropical foliage, partially obscuring the cold, starry sky.

"Nee-chan, come on…"

"He's deteriorating." Arashi started levelly as Sorata realized he was still holding his glass of soda and sipped it, lowering it back to the table. "All it took was one guy to ask him for donations to the disaster fund, and he freaked. That kind of thing is everywhere now. There's no way he'll be able to avoid it. All we can do is not compromise his situation further."

"But if you knew you'd been the one to cause all that damage, wouldn't you—"

"It isn't a question of willpower." Arashi took a deep breath and collected her thoughts, forming her words. Though her mind was quick, words came slowly to her. "…it's that anybody would be affected that way. It's a hard hit for anybody. And he can't afford hard hits like that. He's on the edge."

"What, you think he'd magically not hear about it if he moved away from us?"

"—I never said that—"

"If anything, we're his sanctuary. We don't have the news runnin' twenty-four-seven like most people nowadays, and we don't talk about it so much. We've… got tact; we know not to say bad things around him. Nobody else does."

"We don't talk about it because we lived it. Because we were in it."

"So?"

_So, it should be perfectly clear._ Arashi's brow furrowed slightly, further. "…because we're the Dragons of Heaven, his being around us is like being around a trigger. Our very presence and involvement in the war could be the stimuli that sets him off again. It won't take much at all. And I think we'd do more to cause that than being in an environment where he has to listen to the newscast."

"But what about Kamui? Nee-chan, he deserves happiness more than anything, and Fuuma is all he's got left."

"Kamui is _precisely_ the one I'm most worried about."

"Why? He might be the one to help Fuuma the most—"

"The closer they get, the more danger Fuuma is in of changing back." Arashi glowered across the table. "Don't you see that? They're Gemini; I don't know exactly why, but I _know_ that Kamui'd be most likely to trigger him off again. He was… what got Fuuma to change over in the first place, with his decision. He's definitely got that power."

"But he's got no more wishes to make like that; he's already on our side. Don't you think he's used up his ace?"

Arashi glared flatly. Sorata laid his forearms on the table to grasp for her hands. Arashi's fists stayed in her lap. Sorata closed his fingers slightly as if to draw back.

"Nee-chan, don't be like this."

"You just don't get it, do you?"

"Get what?"

"It was Kamui's heart that swayed Fuuma once. I don't want to think of the danger of their hearts getting closer."

"But I thought Kamui was involved with Subaru. Actually, I don't know what's goin' on there, but I got the feelin'—"

"Kamui swayed Fuuma as nothing but a best friend; if they stay that or become more, the danger is still there." Arashi paused. "And I don't know what is going on between Kamui and Subaru and Fuuma. I've never been very good at understanding relationships."

"That's why you need to learn."

Sorata's hands were open again, straining, reaching. Arashi glanced at them and clenched her fists more tightly in her lap, looking to the side to avoid eye contact. She understood relationships better than she let on, but pretending she did not saved her a lot of grief and obligation to sensitivity she did not feel entitled to give.

There was a long silence. Sorata quietly said "Neee-chan" in a singsong manner; when Arashi only stiffened in response, he sighed heavily and withdrew his hands to his glass.

"Well, then, what do you propose we do about Fuuma?"

"…just… send him off for a while, away from us and Kamui. Let him live quietly until all of this blows over. He can always come back when it's safe."

"And what if it'll never be safe? Do you really think we can shake destiny off completely, even if we've slowed it down for a little while?" Sorata leaned further forward, and his eyebrows bent backwards slightly in a strange mimic of restrained sorrow. "You've believed in the absolution of destiny stronger'n any of us. Don't bullshit us. You know it'll never be _safe_." He paused for a moment. "I'm not dumb, Nee-chan. Please don't talk to me like I am."

Arashi averted her eyes. "I know you're not dumb, Sorata-san."

Sorata smiled, still looking oddly pained, and leaned forward further. "Please—" Arashi could feel his expression grow more pained as she reflexively drew away a bit, but she didn't care. "—it's just 'Sorata'," he finished softly. "Or Sora, if you'd so prefer. What is wrong with you? You were calling me 'Sorata' just the other day. Stop drawing away from me."

Arashi bit her lower lip softly and clenched her forearms, forcing herself to look Sorata in the eye and neutralize her expression. She was terrified the effort it took would be evident. "The suffering of one over—"

"—two—"

"—_two_ over the fate of humanity. What's the right thing to do?"

"Well…" Sorata looked to the side and groaned slightly in distaste, thinking, furrowing his eyebrows. "…it's not to—turn Fuuma out on the street—"

"I never said anything about turning him out on the street." Arashi hugged her abdomen slightly, back straight. "…and our fate has given us a burden to bear for the good of humanity. Even if it's not fair. You know the answer deep down, Sorata-san. Even though it's not easy."

"Just… 'Sorata'. Please."

Sorata was silent for a long time, staring at Arashi with that same pained gaze and obviously struggling with multiple things he wanted to say. Finally, he sighed.

"Do you think the boys got back to the house all right?"

"I'm sure they did. Keiichi and Yuzuriha should be back by now; they'd tell us if things went badly."

* * *

"_There's something you've got to accept if you want to have a relationship with Fuuma. Bear this in mind. He's damaged. There's nothing romantic or alluring about it, and it will soon be clear how much it will permeate the relationship. He's neurotic about any contact that could be considered even vaguely sexual, and that's only the beginning of his problems." Seishirou was staring at Kamui levelly through his glasses with his fingers interlocked over his mouth. "Do you think you'll stay with him in sickness and health, till death do you part, after months and months and years and decades of dealing with that, when you look around you and see people in relationships that are relatively healthy, and wonder why you can't have that for yourself? You could live a simple life, an uncomplicated life, with a nice girl who wouldn't flinch every time you touched her, and who would lift the burden from your shoulders, not lean on you with her own burden. Who wouldn't have been a part of a war, a constant reminder, the _worst _reminder, even, the cause of all the trouble. You could have a heterosexual relationship, without having to explain yourself, without having to be ostracized, without having to have people constantly ask why you can't just be _normal_. You won't be able to be open about your relationship without having people think you're flaunting your homosexuality. It's _different _on this side of things, Kamui, regardless of what the media makes you think. With the vast majority of the population, we're _not _considered the same as everybody else. It's not fair, and it may seem like I'm playing an outdated politically-correct line, but it's true. You could live without that additional trouble." Seishirou paused. "So, is this still your decision? For the rest of your life? Do you truly love Fuuma that much? Because only if you love him more than anybody else, regardless of his damage, will this relationship survive and make you happy."_

"_How the _hell _am I supposed to know if we'll stay together forever? We're—we're just starting this out; I don't know if we'll last a week. And we're seventeen."_

_Seishirou laughed and said that Kamui was very right. Kamui realized through a vaguely surreal haze that he was no longer focusing on Seishirou as the source of Fuuma's sexual damage; the thought somehow did not make him want to raise his guard. It seemed like something far in the past, beyond the more recent conversations and merely shadowing Seishirou's status as a trustworthy, if not shady, mentor._

"…_I can't go into any relationship right now making promises like that. Nobody can. I just want to try. And I'll fight all the way as long as it's going to work out."_

"_Then that's all you can resolve, for now." A faint, pleased smile was playing at the corners of Seishirou's mouth. "And don't feel alone. Things like this—like what happened to Fuuma, like the situation you are willingly entering—things like this happen every day, all over Tokyo."  
_

* * *

Fuuma had long since calmed down and was slouched down in his favorite armchair in the living room, eyes closed, though he was not dozing. His eyes were raw, and every muscle in his face was slack with exhaustion and abject guilt. Every so often he would clench his eyes and take a shuddering breath that was a shadow of an impending sob, but eclipsed that edge before Fuuma could break down again. Kamui had helped Fuuma out of his green-and-tan plaid shirt, the ends of the collar of which were damp with vomit, and had found a simple white t-shirt that was still warm from the dryer. Fuuma was barely able to stand while Kamui had helped him out of his shirt; his weight buckled with the slightest pressure. When Kamui had finally been able to steer Fuuma over to the armchair, Fuuma had collapsed as though somebody had kicked him in the stomach. 

Fuuma remained silent while Kamui took off his suit jacket and threw it on the chair across the room and went upstairs to fish for a bottle of sake under his bed. He finally rolled it over with his fingertips and caught it, then sat on the edge of his bed for a moment and dropped his forehead into his hand, holding the bottle loosely over his leg. He just then realized how badly he was shaking. His chest and stomach seemed to have filled with lead; everything was heavy, and the surface of his tongue hinted metallic.

He realized a few moments later that he was crying, and made no effort to dam his throat; he fell on his side and sobbed wretchedly for an unknown duration of time, burying his face in his hand and clutching at his skin. It felt good, in a sense, to wrench his gut over and over with self-accusations, to beat the hell out of his own mind and heart with the worst judgments that could be given in his situation. The coldest logic. The deadliest, most all-encompassing assurances of his guilt. It felt good to release the emotions and allow them to crash into his gut, the pure self-loathing and guilt that he had been damming with logic and common sense—that he had held back by assuring himself none of this had been his fault. Everything had been caused by his existence. Everything circled back to him. His secret thoughts. His inverse-self. Kamui wallowed in a completely Kamui-centric universe, as the source of all bad in a universe in which all good would surely soon be destroyed if he dared to touch it. If his resolve broke and he touched.

_Fuuma._

—_Fuuma, back turned arms crossed, angelic and pure, white-coated and white-winged, blindingly edged by white sunlight, sad, so sad, so beautiful and untouchable, the most pure and sad thing in the world—_

Kamui knew that he was leaving Fuuma alone downstairs when that was the last thing Fuuma needed at that moment, but he kept resolving to get up after "five more minutes" until a full hour-and-a-half had passed and his sobs had slowed to slow, shuddering breaths. He finally took a good look at his bedside clock and sat up, pulling down the red turtleneck that had bunched up around his waist.

_Okay. _He took a deep breath. _I've felt sorry for myself long enough. Time to be strong again. Level. Mature. Put things in perspective. This is not my fault. This is not Fuuma's fault. Destiny just screwed us over. It would have happened to anybody Destiny would have chosen._

Kamui walked to the bathroom, washed his face with cold water, toweled himself off, decided that it was the best he would be able to do to make himself look presentable without waiting longer, and walked downstairs with the sake, hesitating a moment behind the end of the stairwell wall before forcing himself over the top and leaning out to look at Fuuma's armchair. Fuuma seemed to have fallen asleep; Kamui hoped that was the case, since any sleep Fuuma was able to get was good for him. He padded down the last few steps and collapsed in the armchair across from Fuuma, opened the sake, and took a deep drink straight from the bottle.

"Kamui?"

Kamui choked on the sake and sat up, coughing; Fuuma was definitely awake, and his garnet-red eyes were surprisingly clear and focused. The boys stared at one another for a few moments before they stared anywhere-but-each other in an awkward silence while Kamui gasped and regained his breath.

Kamui hated awkward silences. They made him pressingly aware of a taboo subject between them.

_I kissed Fuuma. We act like it never happened. I don't know if that's good or bad. So, great, now we're going to be super-casual with each other and pretend nothing ever happened. Fuuma, don't be embarrassed; it's all right—_

"Are you drinking?" said Fuuma.

"Er… uh, yeah."

Silence.

"…why?"

"Um… I dunno. I feel like it."

"Oh."

"…you want some or something?"

"I'm fine, thank you."

"…no. No, I think you need some."

"What?"

"Wait."

"No, Kamui—"

"—just wait—"

"—I'm fine—"

"—hold on."

Kamui strode into the kitchen, holding the bottle by its handle, and retrieved two English tea mugs from the cabinets, then returned to the living room and shoved one handle-first into Fuuma's hand before pouring the clear alcohol into the mug. The acrid smell fumed from the splashing liquid. Fuuma stared at it apprehensively.

"That's—that's not a sake cup."

"Sake cups are for pussies who want to do shots. We're _drinking_."

"Um, Kamui…"

"I'm sorry the stuff's room temperature." Kamui poured himself a mug of sake and set the bottle down by his ankles as he sat on the ottoman in front of Fuuma. Their knees were between one another's, like a zipper's teeth. "It ain't so bad once you get used to it, though. If you really don't like sake, I think I've still got some red-current vodka up in my room."

"I really don't like alcohol very much."

"It's like medicine. It doesn't taste amazing, but it has its effects."

Fuuma stared at Kamui. "You can't… believe that."

"_Fuuma!_" Kamui sighed and leaned forward in exacerbation. "I promise you won't turn into an alcoholic or die if you drink every now and then to calm your nerves. I promise. All right?"

Fuuma stared at Kamui. Kamui arched his eyebrows.

"_Please_ tell me you've drank before."

Fuuma shrugged. Kamui sucked in air and exhaled slowly. _Almost eighteen years old and clean as a whistle. If I had lived in Tokyo he'd have gotten out of the house more._

"I mean," said Fuuma, "I've had wine at dinner a bit, and I've had some sake, and I tried some beer at a family party—"

"None of that counts as _drinking_. Rule of thumb is that if you did it with your daddy around, it ain't drinking."

"Oh." A moment of sadness flickered across Fuuma's features. Kamui cursed himself; mentioning Monou Kyougo was clearly out of bounds, and he damn well knew it. "All right, then."

"Oh, god. I'm sorry, Fuuma. Your dad—"

"It's all right." Fuuma swilled the sake and stared down at the mug. "…I don't want his name to disappear forever just because it's painful."

Kamui stared at Fuuma for a long time as Fuuma swilled the drink, eyes far away. Kamui didn't notice his grip had tightened around his own mug handle until the porcelain started to press his fingers' bones together painfully.

_You amaze me, Fuuma. I can't tell you enough how much you amaze me._ He looked down at his mug. _I'll never be good enough for you._

"…all right." Kamui looked up and nodded over his mug. "We'll do it together, all right?"

* * *

"J'know our moms were lesbians?" 

"What?"

"No, seriously. They were lesbians together. Rug munchers. Muff divers." Kamui paused. "Our moms."

"What?"

"They liked to munch rugs."

Fuuma glared up from his sprawling position in his chair; his head had been back over the juncture of the chair's arm and the back. "That's not so nice to say about our moms."

"Maybe that's why we're gay, though. Swishy. Gay." Kamui was lying on his back on the floor at Fuuma's feet, staring at the ceiling; he sat up and leaned back on his hands. "That's why we're sausage packers."

"_Kamui!_" Fuuma thought for a moment. "…we like women too!"

"So we're rug munchers _and_ sausage packers!"

"Kamui, that's vile."

"What?"

"Disgusting."

Kamui pointed at Fuuma unsteadily, closing one eye as though aiming at him. "…I thought you said 'vile'."

"_You're_ vile. Wait; what?"

"We're _drunk_."

"What?"

"We're drunk."

"That's no excuse to be stupid." Fuuma sank back into the chair and allowed his head to drop back over the arm again. "…you know the vast majority of a drunken euphoria is psychological, right?"

"Oooh, big words!" Kamui flung his hands open at Fuuma as though flicking water onto him. "_Euphoria._"

Fuuma looked up slightly. "What?"

"Euphoria!"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm making a drunken euphoria." Kamui flung his hands open again. "Euphoria!"

Fuuma shook his head and sank back over the chair arm. "I think you're desperate to be wasted."

"You're not sober either."

"Yesss I am."

"Nooo, you're not."

Kamui fell back onto the floor and sighed, closing his eyes and folding his hands behind his head. Fuuma stared at the ceiling for a long time, thinking.

"…is what you say true about our moms?"

"What?"

"That they were… involved." Fuuma cleared his throat. "Lesbians."

"Uh-huh."

"But…" Fuuma thought for a moment. "Mom and Dad were together, weren't they?"

"Well, yeah."

"…but…"

"I dunno why your mom married your dad. I think it's got to do with the Shinken."

"What?"

"The _Shinken_."

"Oh."

"I mean… it's got to, right? It'd be too much of a coincidence otherwise."

"Oh."

Fuuma closed his eyes for a while. Now that he thought about it, as a child he had noticed his father always watched his mother with the utmost care, staring at her as she did various tasks around the house with a distant, deep melancholy in his expression, but his mother never returned the favor. Her eyes were always far away. She certainly loved Kyougo on some deep level, and loved her children more than the world, but something seemed unreciprocated between his parents. As a child he certainly knew what unrequited love meant, but his parents were excluded from all considerations of abnormality and anything perverse. They _had_ to love each other. They _had_ to be the manifestation of safety and what was right in the world. Even though Saya had died hideously, it was a more likely and bearable idea than something so fundamentally wrong as Mom and Dad not loving each other. Saya's death was unfortunate and out of the bounds of the family's control. The very essence of the family itself lied in the bond Fuuma assumed they had.

Now that Fuuma was older and he realized that his parents, like all parents, were two people who had met and gotten into a relationship, and who had ended up with children; this did not exempt them from something being fundamentally wrong with their relationship on the basis of them being His Parents alone. It was something he had always considered, especially after hearing stories of his friends' parents' relationships going to hell; to know it was actually true for _him_ was destabilizing. His point-of-reference for his worldview was shifting. No longer was he Fuuma, the one from the loving family; now he was Fuuma, the one with a broken family. The room seemed lukewarm and far too immediate; every small movement caught his awareness. He shifted in his seat and sighed heavily, blinking at the ceiling, allowing the information to soak through the surface of his mind.

"…hey, Kamui?"

"Hnnn?"

"Does that make us, like, brothers?"

"I don't think so." Kamui paused; Fuuma kept his focus on the ceiling. "It's kinda odd, though. Kinda ironic."

"You know, if our mothers weren't involved, we never would've met… would we?"

" 'sbullshit. We met that one day on the street corner because of the dog, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, but would we have met each other again?" Fuuma thought for a moment. "And I bet we wouldn't have been in the same neighborhood in the first place if you guys hadn't had moved closer to us anyway."

"Life's funny like that."

"It's almost like you're my destiny."

Kamui did not respond for a long time. Fuuma sighed and closed his eyes, re-adjusting his position so his head was further up along the back of the chair. The blood rushing to his head was not helping his lightheadedness.

"…you almost make me want to like fate," said Kamui.

"What?"

"I hate destiny. I want to destroy it."

Fuuma opened his eyes; suddenly, his head was clear, replacing the staggering clarity of external reality with self-awareness. It was as though he had remembered why he had wandered into a building in the first place, or what his original mission was before he had gotten distracted by something. He sat up straight, staring down at Kamui. The boy was still lying on the floor with his eyes closed, with his hand under the hem of his turtleneck and tracing his fingers across his stomach absently.

"And, you want to destroy destiny now, Kamui?" Fuuma's voice was clear, smooth but hinting at the fringes of the raw elements. It was no longer the voice of a young man. It was the voice of a young god.

Kamui's eyes snapped open; he stared at Fuuma in drunken shock, jaw slack. His hand was frozen under his shirt. Fuuma swung his long legs over the opposite chair arm and stood over Kamui with a soft, sadistic smile. Kamui scrambled to his feet, still gaping, and drew himself up to his full height, staring at Fuuma. He swayed; now that Fuuma was sober, he could see Kamui was incredibly drunk.

"Fuuma?" Kamui reached up to Fuuma's face tentatively. "Come on; this isn't funny."

Fuuma grabbed Kamui's wrist and twisted Kamui around roughly, plowing him forward through an ornamental table bearing a vase of roses and smashed him into the wall as the vase crashed to the ground. The water flooded around Fuuma's bare feet as he locked Kamui's arm and shoved Kamui's hips into the wall with his own, jerking Kamui's locked shoulder roughly, asserting dominance. Kamui choked and twisted his neck around painfully, and Fuuma smashed Kamui's cheek into the wall. Fuuma felt that his Gemini was enraged and terrified; Kamui's disappointment was welling and crashing so harshly that he felt as though he was drowning, lungs filling with lead. He was pleading and moaning litanies; the initial shock was wearing off. Fuuma lowered his head to nuzzle the juncture of Kamui's neck.

"Fuuma, this isn't funny; please, please stop—"

"Then why don't you do something about fate if you hate it so much? Or are you just going to whine about how much you hate it without trying to change anything?"

"Please, God, no," Kamui shuddered as Fuuma nipped his ear. "—please God, no—please—oh my God, please, God, no—PLEASE—FUUMA, WAKE UP—"

"No. What you want is for me to go back to sleep."

"—this isn't happening this isn't happening this isn't happening—" Kamui whined thinly; he was on the verge of tears. His words rushed out in a barking sob. "—this isn't happening _oh my God FUUMA PLEASE WAKE UP—_"

Fuuma roared and shoved Kamui away, stumbling back and slipping in the spilt water. The backs of his hands were searing; he screamed and clutched at his hands, falling to his knees. The marrow of his bones was blistering; the bones were cracking with the pressure from inside, shattering; his skin was surely ripping along the lines, popping muscle and tendon and each fiber painfully as though each was a nerve all its own—

Fuuma awoke curled over his knees, clutching his hands; Kamui was kneeling over him and shaking his shoulders, screaming his name repeatedly. He had vomited in pain; the mess was all over his clothes, his hands, and the floor, and the aftertaste was acrid in his mouth. He gasped and smashed forward onto his hands, barely avoiding the mess on the floor, and vomited again, shaking so badly his arms were a hairsbreadth from collapsing. Most of what he was vomiting now was alcohol, and he could taste that clearly. This time, a few drops of blood also splattered onto the floor. Kamui pushed him upright and supported his shoulders, staring into Fuuma's half-opened eyes.

"_Fuuma!_ Come on, you bastard, come back! Fuuma!"

"It's me… it's me; what are you talking about?"

"Oh my God!"

Kamui gave Fuuma a tight hug around the shoulders and kissed the top of his head, still muttering "Oh my God" in a babbling, fevered litany; Fuuma was too dazed to register the intimacy of the gesture. Kamui ran into the kitchen and returned with paper towels and started to clean Fuuma's jaw and nose—Fuuma then realized that the blood was from his nose; he had a gushing nosebleed—and Fuuma was too dazed to protest and insist that he could take care of himself. He was vaguely aware of how disgusting he was at that moment, but was too exhausted and shaky to resist being helped. After Kamui had mopped up what he could, he ordered Fuuma to pinch his nose with a wad of paper towels and pushed Fuuma back against the ottoman—pushing it against the chair so it wouldn't slide around—and cleaned up the floor, which was thankfully wooden, water and vase shards included. By the time Kamui had thrown the towels away and had returned with a glass of water, Fuuma had calmed enough to fully realize what had just happened. He remembered none of it, but the evidence, the mental black-out, and Kamui's agitated state were evidence enough.

"Kamui—I'm so sorry, I—"

"Shut the fuck up!" Kamui shoved the glass so roughly into Fuuma's free hand Fuuma slammed back into the ottoman; upon further inspection, he could see Kamui was crying. "Just drink that and _shut up_! You're lucky you're here! So shut up and stop apologizing!"

"But I've made such a mess—"

"I. DON'T. CARE. Shut up and drink that."

Fuuma watched Kamui carefully as he sipped at the water, washing the awful aftertaste off his tongue, as Kamui ran upstairs and returned with another clean shirt and a clean pair of pajama pants. He stood over Fuuma, still livid, though he had stopped crying and had set his jaw so hard he was barring his teeth. He seemed to have sobered, though his movements were still lacking in coordination; his eyes were clear, dark purple tinting conflicting, unfathomable, wracking emotions. He stood that way over Fuuma until Fuuma had finished his glass and was leaning back against the ottoman, gasping and rubbing the backs of his hands. They were still sore to the bone, but it was a mere shadow of the prior pain, like the ghost of an explosion that is left when one closes his eyes afterward.

"…Kamui…" Fuuma said weakly.

"You scared the _hell_ out of me." Kamui's voice was deathly quiet, restrained. He was trying to keep from sobbing; the effort of restraining himself was twisting his face further, making him curl his lip in and clamp down on it so hard his jaw shook. "…I've never been so scared in my entire life. I almost lost you again."

"Kamui…"

"Do you want to take a bath?"

Fuuma barely shook his head. "I don't think I even have the energy to stand. I think I'd drown."

"Then let's get you out of those clothes."

It took a considerable amount of time to get Fuuma into clean clothes again. The shirt was little problem; the pants Fuuma refused to allow Kamui to aid him with, and insisted on Kamui facing the other way as he laboriously changed. His arms were shaking so badly that he could barely tie the drawstring on the pajama pants, but he finally was able to do so. As soon as he was done his legs gave out on him and he collapsed back into the chair, closing his eyes and sinking into the deep cushions. He heard movement and felt Kamui leave the room; a few moments later, Kamui was standing over him again. Fuuma did not open his eyes.

"Kamui, I'm so sorry about all of this. This is so disgusting and—embarrassing—"

"Whatever happened to you saved you. I don't give a fuck what happened as a result. You're here." Kamui paused. His voice was calmer now, quiet. "Can I see your hands?"

Fuuma nodded. He felt Kamui kneel down beside the chair and take his right hand, flipping it so their hands were palm-to-palm. Fuuma opened his eyes to actually look at his hands for the first time since they had exploded; there was a faint, glowing imprint of two five-pointed stars superimposed over one another, the one with its center point toward his middle finger red, and the reciprocal one white. He glanced at Kamui; Kamui's eyebrows were furrowed.

"…it looks like you've got two guardian angels."

Fuuma had a vivid memory of lying naked in ice water with the backs of his hands growing searing-hot. "…Subaru-san, isn't it?"

Kamui nodded, still furrowing his eyebrows. "I didn't know about him. I knew about the other one."

"Who?"

Kamui did not respond. Fuuma curled his fingers slightly.

"It's Seishirou-san, isn't it?"

Kamui looked up at Fuuma sharply. "…how did you know that?"

"Subaru-san talked to me a bit." Fuuma took a deep breath; it was the first time all evening he had remembered his conversation with Subaru. It had been at the forefront of his mind until the encounter with the Hearts of CLAMP Campus Disaster Relief Club at the dance. Since then, it had been a non-existent thought. "He's the Sakurazukamori." Kamui's eyes grew wide. Fuuma exhaled through his nose in irritation, but only succeeded in popping his ears since he was still pinching it. _Exactly._ "Kamui, come on. You're both hiding something from me about Seishirou-san. I'm not as big of an oaf as I seem."

"…could we not talk about it right now?"

"It's not like I'm going to forget—"

"I _know_ that. Just—please?"

Kamui had lot let go of Fuuma's hand; Fuuma now noticed that Kamui was tightening his grip. Fuuma looked up at Kamui; Kamui was staring silently back at Fuuma, blinking every few seconds. It was not the first time they had made eye contact at such close quarters, but the weight and level, pointed directness of Kamui's gaze held Fuuma's attention with unprecedented strength. Fuuma took a deep, silent breath through his mouth, allowing his chest to rise and fall, realizing that he was still holding his nose with a bloody pad of paper towels. He broke the gaze to pull the pad away and felt right under his nose, and, after deducing that his nose was dry, wiped it with a clean patch and threw the pad in the nearby trash can.

Kamui's stare had not wavered when he looked back, and the tension weighed on Fuuma again as though there had been no break. Kamui was stroking the blade of Fuuma's hand with his thumb; he sniffed and licked his lips, taking a silent breath. Fuuma stared back, blinking, realizing more fully what exactly this meant. The feeling had already settled into the pit of his stomach; now, it was growing, riveting him in morbid fascination. Though Fuuma's memory was spotty at times he had always remembered the evening Kamui had kissed him and bolted; he had pushed the memory to the back of his mind for the sake of keeping things from getting awkward, but now it returned full-force, unleashing the dammed emotions and confusion he had associated with it.

"Look…" Fuuma took a deep breath through his nose and exhaled; the desire to bolt was starting to jerk at his nerves. "…I think we finally need to discuss what happened—"

"I'm sick of discussing. Waiting. It's bullshit. There's nothing to discuss. I did what I felt like doing."

"But…" Fuuma caught himself on the chair's arm and considering crawling over it; Kamui tightened his grip on his hand. "…uh… erm…"

"Shut up." Kamui's voice was even and cold, edging with a swelling of the emotions he had just gotten under control. His gaze was direct, but his eyes seemed far away, thinking. "I almost lost you. I've never been so scared in my entire life. We can't wait; destiny won't wait for us. So, before it's too late, let's do this." He paused for a moment. "Life's too short to ever wait."

"Do what?" The hand on the back of the chair was quaking; Fuuma was considering kicking Kamui in the face and bolting out the door. "Kamui, do what?"

"You're not going to run away from me." Kamui raised his eyes slightly, clearing like a shutter, re-focusing on Fuuma, trying to pin Fuuma to his seat. Fuuma just felt more like running. "Not because you're scared. I'm not going to let you associate love with hurt any longer."

"I'm…" Fuuma's wrist collapsed; he fell on his forearm and yanked Kamui with him. Kamui stabilized himself and knelt on the ottoman, resting one knee on the edge of the chair. "…I'm not going to sleep with you!"

Kamui paused at this and stared at Fuuma for a while. The serious glaze over his eyes melted, as sun burns off mist, and he started laughing. Fuuma allowed the arm Kamui was holding to go slack.

"Kamui?"

"Oh my God." Kamui held his hand to his eyes, shaking his head and laughing harder. "You _moron_."

"…what?"

" 'I'm not going to sleep with you!' Oh my God…"

Kamui fell at Fuuma's side, still gripping Fuuma's hand and twisting Fuuma's shoulder awkwardly; Fuuma twisted onto his side to relieve the pressure. "Fuuma, for God's sake, I swear I'm not going to rape you, all right?"

"…I know that, but… er…" Fuuma settled back and wondered just why that had been the first outburst to come to mind. _Great._ _I sound like a paranoid idiot._ "…actually... you know what; never mind."

"We'll take it as slow as you want, all right?"

"We'll—wait, what's this 'we'll' business? We'll do what?" Kamui was still laughing, curled up on his side; Fuuma sighed and hauled him onto his back by the shoulders, pinning him down across the span of the chair and the ottoman. "_Kamui_!"

"I'm in love with you, Monou Fuuma."

Fuuma stared; Kamui smiled at him, an odd, toothy, open-mouthed grimace that Fuuma realized was twisted half by laughing, half by crying. It was difficult to tear his eyes away from, somehow seemingly inappropriate for the situation. But tear his eyes away he finally did, and Fuuma stared at the floor to the chair's left.

"…are you ready to say words that strong?"

"Yes," said Kamui. Fuuma kept his eyes to the floor. "I've thought about it a lot for a long time, Fuuma. And there's no time to be a coward. I love you. I've been in love with you for a while."

"…I'm not ready to say words that strong."

"That's all right." Fuuma looked at Kamui; Kamui stared back at him levelly, smiling tearfully. "I'd never want you to lie to me, ever. If you say the same to me, I want to know you really mean it. Above all else, we're best friends, and best friends are honest with each other."

Fuuma thought for a moment, looking away and sitting up. "…I'm not even sure I'm ready to… I don't know… Kamui, do you want us to get romantically involved? Become lovers? I don't even know if I'm ready for that."

Kamui sat up slightly. "You don't even want to try?"

"…I'm honestly not sure how I feel about you that way." Fuuma took a deep breath, trying to organize his thoughts. He did not want to look at Kamui's face; he was sure the disappointment there would be heartbreaking. "I'm sorry, I just don't. And… something seems wrong about going into a relationship when you're ready to say 'I love you' and I… well, don't even know what to say, or where to stand, or…" Fuuma sighed. "I don't know, Kamui. I just can't make any promises to you right now. And I don't want to break your heart. Above all, I don't want to screw up our friendship. It means a lot to me."

"But how will we know until we try?" Kamui sat up fully and stared; Fuuma still refused to make eye contact. "You've kept pushing me out; you're not allowing yourself to feel anything for me, so how will you ever know if you don't try? And I'll take it if you decide it's not going to work out." Kamui paused. "First and foremost, we're best friends, and nothing's ever going to change that."

"But you do want more?"

"Of course. Desperately." Kamui took a deep breath. "But I'll take what's right for you."

Fuuma arched his eyebrows. "…you're not honestly going to sit here and tell me that we won't allow things to get weird and can go right back to the way things were, because you know that's bullshit. The further you go, the harder the—fall, the harder it is to fix things. And you can never go back to start."

"I know. I've thought about all of this a hundred times over. We can't even go back from this conversation." Kamui took a deep breath. "Don't start like this, Fuuma. You've got to believe it's going to work out, or it won't."

"Who said I've agreed to anything?"

Kamui was silent. Fuuma look off at a distant wall.

"Kamui, I can't allow anybody to get emotionally close to me. I'm dangerous. I—I just almost turned back into a monster, I hurt you—sooner or later, if things turn back the way they were, you'll have to kill me." Fuuma stared at Kamui. "…and emotions can't prevent you from doing what's right for the sake of the world."

"You think I care if there's a chance it might end? We've only got right now!"

"I'm afraid you're the trigger that'll send me back over the edge."

"Because I'm your Gemini?"

"Yes, and… kind of, no." Fuuma collected his thoughts for a moment. "…I just get that feeling."

"Why?"

"Because you're somebody close to my heart."

Silence. A stare.

"…what are you admitting?"

"I don't know. I honestly have no idea."

"…Fuuma! Come on! I'll take any defeat that comes if we give it our best shot, but if we never try, I'll regret it the rest of my life."

Fuuma stared at Kamui. "…how long have you been waiting to pull that one out?"

"We can talk to Subaru and Sakurazuka. Imonoyama and the CLAMP Campus guys, everybody. If we pull enough people together I'm sure we can beat this." Kamui squeezed Fuuma's hand. "…please, for God's sake don't let that be your excuse."

"It's not an _excuse_! It's a valid reason! It's far too great of a risk to risk even a sliver of a chance that I might go nuts again. Countless thousands of people have died because of me. Thousands. Their lives are worth more than us—even our own two lives, let alone us getting into a relationship." Fuuma realized he was raising his voice and took a deep breath, quieting. Kamui was staring at him quietly, thinking, brows bent back in faint despair. "…destiny can't be checked even by all the wards in the world. Subaru-san and Seishirou-san checked me this once. There's no guarantee they'd succeed again."

"But, I don't even know what triggered it this time! It wasn't because we were getting close! I don't think that's it."

Fuuma thought for a while. He had already forgotten what had triggered his relapse, but whatever it was, he knew it was directly precipitated by Kamui. He sighed and sat up.

"Then the solution is more drastic than I thought, I guess." He stared back at Kamui; Kamui's lip was trembling and curling in anticipation of a passionate rebuke. "I have to leave you completely."

"NO! For God's sake, let us talk this out with everybody! There has to be some way you can stay here! I refuse to give up this easily. You mean far too much to me." Kamui stopped for a moment, thinking, breathing labored with emotional exhaustion and crying. "I thought I told you you're the person I was fighting for the most. To get you back. Now that you're here, I'm not going to let you go so easily. I've given up everything for my destiny. You're what I kept fighting for."

"What about Subaru-san and the others?"

"Not nearly as much as you. Never nearly as much as you."

"…I was under the impression you and Subaru-san have a history."

Kamui looked up sharply; Fuuma took a deep breath. _A-ha._ _I knew it._

"…why? What do you know?"

Fuuma shrugged and smiled to himself, looking off to the side. "I'm not as dense as people seem to think."

Kamui sighed and looked out the door, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. His eyes seemed far away again, narrowed with faint concern and regret. "…yeah, Subaru and I… kind of half-started something, I think. Actually, I'm not even sure what we ever were. That was the night we found you. But since you've come back, I just haven't cared about Subaru anymore that way. I mean—I don't know what the hell I did that evening, but I'd like to forget it."

"He won't. He hasn't."

"Well, that's his damn problem, isn't it?"

"_Kamui._"

"Well, living for everybody but myself has taken everything from me; maybe just this one time I want something for myself." Kamui's gaze was still narrow and distant, conflicted but unwavering; his tone was calm. "Is that selfish?"

"Yes, extremely." Fuuma thought for a moment. "But we've got to be selfish every now and then. Just not when the price is paid by so many people."

"It won't be. It can't be." Kamui stared at Fuuma, hard. "I promised I wouldn't screw up again. Too many people have paid for my mistakes. If you turn back, I'll do what I have to do. And I'll fight every step of the way so that doesn't happen." He crossed his arms. "So that's not an excuse not to be with me." Kamui thought for a moment. "In the end, I'm extremely selfish, and I don't care."

Fuuma was silent, though he knew Kamui was lying. He wasn't sure if Kamui meant that he didn't care about Subaru, specifically, or the fate of the world, but he suspected it was both. Kamui looked back out the door after a few moments of staring at Fuuma's bowed head; Fuuma glanced up and saw that Kamui had the same resolved, concerned expression, brows delicately creased, seeing something far beyond the door. They were both silent for a long time; the kitchen clock chirped the top of an hour and some people from the dance ran past the house talking loudly and drunkenly, whooping about something somebody was doing. While they were passing Kamui and Fuuma exchanged glances, eyebrows arched, and Fuuma made a comment about their school having the cream of Japan's intellectual crop; Kamui laughed and said "Yeah" before staring out the door and allowing the silence to re-settle, to regain its tension.

"Kamui?"

Kamui turned around eagerly. "Yes?"

"Look." Fuuma cleared his throat. "I… I don't know, Kamui. I…" Kamui tentatively reached for his hand; Fuuma allowed him to take it, inwardly wincing but curling his fingers around Kamui's. "I'm screwed up. I know that. I know I'm not normal where this relationship stuff is concerned. I don't think I'll ever be able to have a normal relationship. Be like that. Touch people like that. You can do so much better for yourself."

"_Fuuma_, for _God's_ sake, I already told you you're the only one I could ever want."

"But I can't make any promises or anything."

"And as for the physical stuff, that's fine; I want to help you overcome that." Kamui stroked his hand. "Believe it or not, _I_ can be patient too."

"This is news to me."

Kamui laughed weakly and punched Fuuma in the arm; Fuuma recoiled and laughed equally weakly, though he did not pull his hand from Kamui's. True to the cliché his heart was pounding, dull and powerful in his ears, but his giddiness was edged with an inclination to run rooted in something far more primordial than interpersonal nervousness. It was base, physical terror. He could not shake off the feeling that he was making a huge mistake, already feeling the onset of a terrible case of buyer's regret.

He looked up at Kamui, who was staring at him with clear, focused eyes, bent as though he was about to cry. But, he was smiling. And despite his nearly-tearful expression, the smile truly did reach his eyes. Fuuma was struck with the powerful, numbing concept that somebody loved him enough to cry with joy at the mere admission of reciprocal romantic sentiment, unbalanced though it may be. That somebody _wanted_ him more than anybody else. It was a concept dry and cliché in romance stories, usually love given to a character Fuuma considered boring and rather unremarkable, but when it was applied intimately to his best friend, somebody who knew him for who he _truly_ was, better than anybody else, who would love him _that much_ despite all of his truly unflattering faults, it culminated in one of the most powerful, real (_Now I understand what people mean when they say something is so 'real', so 'right'_) moments he had ever experienced.

_I could learn to love you, Kamui._

He didn't know where the thought came from, but it was there, strong and clear like gold gilt on all the rusted terror and guilt.

Kamui gripped his hand tighter, possessively. Fuuma gripped back reflexively, focusing on Kamui as the stabilizing point of his currently stormy psyche, and swallowed. "You know I take promises seriously. I don't make them unless I mean them. That's why I don't want to promise anything right now."

"Yes, yes, I _got_ that—"

"I want you to know that a promise I make is for real. My word is my bond."

Kamui scoffed and gripped even tighter; Fuuma was glad that Kamui was not aligning his knuckles as he often did when he wanted to hurt somebody's hand with an intimidating grip. "_Everybody_ says that. Everybody _thinks_ they _mean_ promises when they make them, at the time. But then it wears off as time passes, and it's forgotten. Like, as things change, and people lose interest in one another. And no, I'm not saying this applies to me." Fuuma's bones creaked with the tightening grip, but he did not complain. "I mean it, Fuuma." Kamui stared at him, hard, still dry-eyed. Fuuma stared back unwaveringly, forcing all of his doubt and fear to the pit of his stomach. "I mean it. With all my heart. I mean, I guess I haven't made any promises yet, but how I feel right now—it's _real_ right now. And that's all I can go by right now."

Fuuma was silent for a long time."…do you remember a promise I made a long time ago? That as long as you protected Kotori, I'd protect you?"

Kamui stared at Fuuma for a few moments. For those moments, he looked even more as though he were about to cry. "Yes," he finally said. His voice was becoming huskier, and he gave a small start at the weak tone of his own voice. He obviously intended to sound stronger. "I failed you in that promise. And I never forgot it for a moment. Even when I was in Okinawa." He smiled ruefully. "What'd the guys think if they knew I was mulling over a promise a friend had made me when I was nine? They'd think it was gay. Well, it was, but I didn't really think about it that way at the time."

"I didn't mean it to be when I made that promise." Fuuma covered Kamui's clasping hand with his free hand, scooting to the edge of the armchair. "And I want you to know that promise will hold no matter what happens between us. You did your best to protect Kotori, and it's all I could ask for."

"But I _failed—_"

"Shut up. First and foremost, you're my friend, and I want to always be your friend, no matter what. And I don't think I broke that promise, even when I was in my other form."

Kamui was silent for a long time, still holding Fuuma's hand in an unrelenting death grip. Fuuma watched him as he looked away, mulling. Obviously, mentioning his other form at a time like this was one hell of a mood killer, but it was something he had been wanting to say for a long time. He did not know how he was aware of this seemingly impossible, contradictory fact, but _fact_ it was. Fuuma knew it with a clarity and a force stunning in the face of the muddled way in which he remembered other details of his other form's intentions.

"…well," Kamui finally said, "Now that I'm actually going to ask, are you gonna let me kiss you?"

Fuuma sat bolt upright and scooted back as Kamui started to crawl up the armchair toward him. "What?"

Kamui pinned Fuuma's shoulders to the back of the chair and stopped with his lips just shy of Fuuma's. He balanced on his knees on either side of Fuuma's hips, unintentionally clearing the space between their groins, much to Fuuma's relief. Both were breathing heavily, chests rising and falling visibly, taking in one another's breath with lightly parted lips. Kamui's breath smelled strongly of alcohol, and the water Fuuma had sipped had not done nearly enough to clear his breath entirely of alcohol _and_ vomit, as it still hung heavily on his tongue, but Kamui did not seem to notice. Fuuma realized upon gripping the chair arm that he was shaking; it was making Kamui overbalance on the chair cushion and come dangerously close to collapsing on top of him, but Kamui braced himself and lipped Fuuma's bottom lip experimentally. It was a feather-light touch, an electric ghost of an idea that made Fuuma's spine tingle and his hair stand on end as he dug his fingers into the upholstery. Kamui started to nip softly at his parted lips with slow, shockingly patient progression, taking in a fraction more of Fuuma's mouth with each movement as though he were drinking something delicious he wanted to savor. His tongue still remained behind his teeth; only lips came into contact, with movement akin to a man dying of thirst taking long, slow drinks of the purest, coldest water. It was deceptively chaste expression of passion, a ripple on the surface of a fathomless pool caused by a testing of the depths.

Kamui braced himself firmly against the back of the chair, a gesture that seemed like a vain outlet for this test of his scant patience and self-control, but the rest of his body was relaxed, focused on Fuuma's mouth, eagerly drinking in the pure, powerful energy of the kiss. Fuuma loosened one hand enough to gently stroke Kamui's flank, covered by his carmine sweater; he appreciated Kamui's patience and willingness to take things slowly more than he could express, when he would have expected Kamui to jump him and knock the chair onto its back with a wild, deep, bruising kiss. This was more like a slow burn, warming and guttering and growing hotter like an ember, and Fuuma found himself relaxing more and more as it deepened further still, moving his own jaw and taking eager, steady sips of Kamui's lips. He released the other chair arm and stroked Kamui's slender waist with both sets of fingertips, half-fantasizing on the idea of teasing the flat stomach and flanks and spine under Kamui's sweater, but shying away from actually performing the act. He dully realized that his heart was still pounding, but it was a warming, liberating effect now, no longer seeming such a flight-or-fight reaction as it initially had. This was not at all the rough violation he associated with intimate contact; it was slow, respectful of boundaries, and loving.

Fuuma was still half-marveling over Kamui's uncharacteristic self-control when Kamui finally groaned quietly, ran one hand roughly through Fuuma's gelled hair, and opened his jaw over Fuuma's barely-open lips, resulting in an awkward position in which he was biting Fuuma's mouth whole—a feat, Fuuma dully noted, since Kamui's mouth was tiny compared to his. Fuuma jerked spastically at the sudden pressure of teeth on the skin around his mouth, least of which for its awkward and amateurish nature, most of which for the sudden, violent change. Kamui paused for a moment as if not quite sure how he had ended up that way, then closed his mouth enough to lip at Fuuma's lips again, running his tongue between Fuuma's lips and across his teeth, trying to coax Fuuma to reciprocate. He stroked Fuuma's scalp comfortingly, but his touch edged with urgency and impatience. Whether or not Kamui was conscious of it, his fingertips was feathering down Fuuma's flank where his shirt had ridden up against the back of the chair, another ghostly touch somehow far more maddening than a firm rake, and still heading south, ghosting around the hem of his sweatpants, ghosting down the angular juncture between leg and groin, the inner hollow of the thigh, the—

Fuuma's shoulders stiffened suddenly as his hand reflexively snapped around Kamui's invading wrist, jerking it out at an odd angle from Kamui's elbow. Kamui started and broke away, gaping and struggling with the painful elbow-lock, trying to fight a frustrated scowl and inaudible protests starting with "Wha—Wha—WHA—"

"—sorry!—"

"Jesus _fuck_, Fuuma, let go!"

Fuuma released Kamui's wrist and Kamui immediately rubbed his elbow, staring at Fuuma with an almost livid expression. Fuuma stared down—noticing his own erection, which was still aching along the underside of the shaft at the feather-contact, flat against his stomach but still pressing slightly against his pants—and immediately averted his eyes to Kamui's knee in a strange mixture of self-disgust, shame, and edgy indifference borne of self-interest, trying to think of something to say. He knew he had been unnecessarily harsh, but the reaction was reflexive. Kamui was panting, and upon raising his eyes slightly Fuuma could see that Kamui was also erect, and far more evidently in his tighter pants. He quickly looked at the wooden floor again and tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair guiltily.

"Kamui, I'm sorry. I'm—God, I'm sorry."

"I wasn't going to yank your dick off or something, you know," Kamui said flatly.

"I know, I just—it was a reflex, I wasn't thinking about it."

Kamui glanced sidelong at Fuuma. "But you _were_ enjoying it."

Fuuma bit his lip and did not respond, still focusing on an odd knot in the floorboards. Kamui hugged his own elbows and stared in the opposite direction, focusing on something of his own choosing. The clock in the hallway chimed the half-hour, Fuuma still tapping his fingers rapidly out of rhythm with the clock's ticking. He glanced at Kamui; Kamui was tapping his fingers on his elbows, face turned to the hallway.

Finally, Fuuma sighed and swung his legs over the juncture of the end of the chair and the ottoman, carefully avoiding kicking Kamui, and stood, levering himself up unsteadily. His erection had long since collapsed, awkwardly flapping back down from being pinned under his pants, and he did not care to take a look at Kamui's crotch to see how resilient he was to crippling awkwardness.

"Kamui, I'm sorry. But—as I told you, this isn't going to happen overnight."

Kamui nodded slowly, still hugging his elbows and staring at the floor. Fuuma could not see his face, but he guessed Kamui was gnawing his lip and wrestling with some form of emotional outburst.

Therefore, he was surprised when Kamui's voice was quiet and level. "I know." He paused for a moment. "We made progress—far better than before."

Fuuma nodded slowly. "I didn't hurt you, did—"

"No."

"—okay. Good."

Silence, once again. Fuuma shoved his hands into the loose pockets of his pants and half-thoughtfully fingered a hole in the bottom of one, nearly large enough to force the tip of his finger through. _If I don't sew that, I'll lose change sooner or later_

—_mending, domestics, Kotori—_

—_hole, force, Kamui—_

Fuuma's eyes glazed in blank shock as he imagined, if even only for a brief, heated second—_forcing Kamui's slender frame stomach-first into the armchair and hot warm tight thrust dick feel his head wet glisten roll fluid over swollen head—_and screwed his eyes shut, shaking his head jerkily. _What the FUCK is wrong with you, thinking about sewing and then your sister and then sex? _

"Fuuma?"

Fuuma started; Kamui was looking over his shoulder, eyebrows arched backward in a nearly-unfathomable expression. Fuuma swallowed and turned toward the stairs.

"I need to go to bed. I feel really sick."

"Fuuma, wait!—"

"I feel like hell. I'm sorry."

"But we need to talk—"

"About what?"

Kamui paused as Fuuma looked over his shoulder, chewing his lip in confusion. "About—everything. About this, and what happened—"

"I think we've talked more than enough for one night, Kamui." Fuuma turned toward the stairs. "We're going to just go around in circles again."

"But are we—I mean, are we—official?"

Fuuma stopped at the foot of the stairs and put his hand on the knob of the darkwood banister, staring at the second step. He heard Kamui stand and felt him step toward him.

"Fuuma?"

"I don't know, Kamui. I'm sorry." Fuuma didn't want to turn around; he knew the confusion and frustration and hurt in Kamui's face would be too much to take on top of everything else. He started to climb the stairs stiffly, still sore. "I really need to sleep on it, all right? Please? I promise we'll talk about it tomorrow."

* * *

_"I've never failed to marvel at how humans willingly walk into situations that will only cause them heartache in the end. They know this going into it. People willingly walk into the same self-destructive spirals they have seen others walk into since time immortal. They think they're different than every other life that burned before theirs. They think they can come out alive, and whole, and happy, without the soul-rot of cynicism. They have the benefit of thousands of years of history, and years of personal observation, to warn them, but still, the flame burns bright, and memorized, they are drawn to it. Moths see their kin burn to death, but they still fly to that very same flame, over the corpses of their brethren. What possess the moth? Freud called it the Thanatos, you know. The death instinct. The desire to self-destruct and destroy others that is as strong as our libido, our Eros. It's beautiful to watch a moth be consumed by a flame. They could involve themselves in healthy relationships, healthy circles, healthy occupations, away from all that is eccentric and insane and damaged. And, many of those "normal" people living a cookie-cutter life of propriety die as happy and fulfilled as any human being can hope to be. A life in the underworld is not the requisite for a "real" life; that is the erroneous assumption of insecure adolescents. So, why do some willingly live a life of pain, when the only thing we want is to be happy? Would you call it an orgasmic death? To end with a bang, and not with a whimper?" _

_"…I don't know. But it's what feels right in my heart.   
_

_Seishirou scoffed quietly and stood, rolling his chair back and stretching. "That's exactly what intrigues me." _


End file.
